Though War Rise: Part 3
by ljkwriting4life
Summary: The conclusion of the Though War Rise saga. Scully, Mulder and the others soon realise that their new lives post-colonisation are not all they're supposed to be. As another reunion looms, some will handle thoughts of what lies ahead better than others. Follows on from Parts One and Two. AU, with MSR, DRR, Skinner/Other, Gibson/Other.
1. Chapter 1

Though War Rise: Part Three  
By: Leese

Notes: The conclusion of the Though War Rise saga. Scully, Mulder and the others soon realise that their new lives post-colonisation are not all they're supposed to be. As another reunion looms, some will handle thoughts of what lies ahead better than others. Follows on from Parts One and Two. AU, with MSR, DRR, Skinner/Other, Gibson/Other.

One

 _The Skeleton Coast, West Africa_

Shannon lifted her head from above the blue, choppy water. Her long, black hair was slicked away from her face and her blue eyes were open, not bothered by the strong salt and wind or the bright sun. Her bare toes scraped against the sand at the bottom of the sea. She was only a few metres from shore. Large dunes rose up before her, higher and more forbidding than any she had seen during her walks across North America with the team she had left behind.

She knew they were there, beyond the dunes. There was less magnetite there than inland, and what was left of the continent which had been turned over to supersoldiers bore little resemblance to the magnetite rich rock formations in other parts of the world. Still, colonies had survived in Angola and South Africa. Shannon had discovered the location of other colonies also, in Western Australia and the west coast of New Zealand.

The supersoldiers had been happy to receive the Southern Hemisphere as part of the Colonisation Convention negotiated with the aliens who had stripped the north of its resources; the Northern Hemisphere held much more magnetite in its geology than the south, across Western Europe and the southern inland and eastern states of the North America. The supersoldiers thought they were safer in the south and that they would have more freedom to move.

But they had made a mistake and Shannon knew it had finally been discovered by the other side. She had been nearing the west coast of Africa and the Equator when the aliens had come back. She had grinned and watched the crafts return to North America, gathering what they had unintentionally left behind under the sand. If Monica, John, Skinner and Gibson were still walking, she knew they would have been awed by the sight of the crafts in the night sky, for surely they had returned to mine Mexico as well.

Shannon had watched them work quickly and then leave. They had retreated straight over her, venturing across northern Africa and towards the Pacific Ocean, where they would be able to safely cross the equator and venture to the Antarctic without drawing the attention of the supersoldier checkpoints, which were focussed on the Atlantic. Shannon had thought of Mulder and Scully then, and their work in Antarctica. They knew more about the magnetite spread in their own country than the aliens would have. Surely the return had been their doing.

Now it was time. Shannon had been waiting. She was prepared.

She waited in the water until the sun fell. Supersoldiers did not sleep, she did not sleep, but she was not attacking the supersoldiers. She wanted more than those machines. She wanted their leaders. And in Africa they thought they were safe. They were well south of the Equator, settled in what remained of a country with few humans. The aliens had not killed the Africans, Shannon knew that. The supersoldiers had; shedding blood to settle because they had nothing better to do. For the first time, humans were on the endangered list in a world that had little life left.

For Shannon, extinction of life on earth was not an option. Though she chose not to acknowledge the fact that she was more human than supersoldier, she knew that underneath she was. She was a mistake of the project. She knew she could feel, and she knew she could love. She did none of those things at present, for when she moved beyond knowing to experiencing, she was weakened in her abilities. And her abilities as a supersoldier would allow her to fight. She had to fight for her friends, for the people she had left behind to fend for themselves in a new world where humans were no longer the dominant species.

Shannon had never played chess, but she had enjoyed her time with Gibson Praise. He had once accompanied her to a supersoldier checkpoint, and she had allowed him to hear the supersoldier's plans, and to know what would become of the team they travelled with: five ex-FBI agents, a blind young woman, and an infant. Little Nicky. Shannon had no concept of the time that had passed since she had left them, and she wondered how big he had gotten. She hoped she would see them again shortly, but that would all depend on how successful she was.

On their way back from the supersoldier checkpoint, Gibson had helped her place the pieces of her plan on the chessboard, something he had been famous for once. His ability to read the minds of all species, human, supersoldier and alien, meant that he was one of Shannon's most important people on the inside. She had a lot of those, within and outside the supersoldier project. Gibson had never been involved with the supersoldiers, but he was very involved with the humans who Shannon knew could help stop the robot race from expanding.

Shannon had been counting on all their team going to the same human colony, but that had been impossible. She remembered Gibson's face falling when he discovered fertility was a requirement of entry into the new human colonies, who were also hoping to expand their population to prevent the extinction of their kind. She had explained that to him, wondering what the problem was.

'Scully is barren.' Shannon had cursed. Her plans had been dashed, but as she had thought, so had the man beside her. Gibson had again come in great use to her. 'What about Antarctica?' he had asked Ted after reading his mind. Shannon and Gibson had discovered more about the Colonisation Convention, and the neutral territory insisted on by the aliens. Scully's infertility would not be a problem there, he had assured them, and so it had been arranged.

Shannon knew Ted was not human, and he was not a supersoldier, but Gibson had confirmed that his intentions were good. Ted had not known who Gibson was or what his ability was, and so had made no attempt to hide his thoughts from the young man. Gibson had found out everything, and shared that information with Shannon on their journey back.

So Mulder and Scully had been sent to the South Pole, to live in what was surely a very comfortable but isolated complex where humans lived only to be used as conservationists and negotiators between the aliens and supersoldiers. Shannon knew aliens resided their also, hiding within the protection of human bodies. She was not sure of their numbers and she did not fear them. She knew they knew of her.

Monica, John and their son Nicholas, and Skinner and his niece Sarah, had been tasked with journeying south. Under the Convention the aliens secured the Northern Hemisphere, and the supersoldiers the Southern, but the human colonies could only survive free from supersoldier threat in areas of high magnetite deposits; the supersoldiers', and Shannon's, true weakness.

It had been a long journey for everyone involved. Monica, John, Mulder and Gibson had travelled from Texas to Virginia to search for Scully, and after a rather miraculous crossing of paths they had come together as a group and walked through the sand from Virginia to Mexico, where they had been forced to go their separate ways.

Skinner and the rest had a long walk ahead of them to get south of the Equator, and though they had walked a similar distance they were now without Shannon to haul the large amount of resources they could not carry, and they were without their friends, one of whom happened to be a medical doctor. They were weary and resources would be harder to come by and carry. If they ran into problems Shannon knew they would have experienced long delays.

She hoped they had made it to the processing centre at least. Shannon had been away from them for many days and nights. She had not bothered to count. She knew when she left it had been just over a year since the earth's territory was divided in two. Perhaps it had been another year since then, or perhaps less. Shannon had taken her time making preparations, and she could work quickly, not needing to sleep or rest, but she had needed to travel long distances to find what she had been looking for.

What she was now just metres away from.

The sun took its time in setting over the picturesque, sandy coastline, but she did not think it was summer. The seasons did not bother Shannon. She felt neither hot nor cold when she was at full strength. She did not know what would happen when she was reunited with those she knew as her friends. She wanted to believe one day she could live with them as a human, but perhaps that was beyond her because of her participation in an experiment which had gotten so far out of hand it was almost unstoppable.

Almost, she repeated silently with a knowing smirk.

Once the sky was dark she strode confidently out of the water, slicking her hair back and brushing the salty drops from her arms. She wore a white t-shirt and jeans. She preferred to swim the Atlantic naked, but the clothes were necessary. Her skin and hair dried within minutes as she strode up the beach, but her clothes would take the usual amount of time to dry. They clung to her tall, curvaceous frame and she reached behind her to her hip, making sure she had that which was most important to her for her operation to be successful.

She climbed easily up the steep dune, not afraid of being seen along the otherwise barren coastline. She knew there were no guards out so early in the night. She had been in the water for days, watching, memorising their routine.

Shannon did not mind working alone. She had enjoyed the company of people for a long time and it had made her more human that she would have liked, and being on her own for so long since had helped her readjust. She was not a human. She was a machine. She could not die. She could breathe underwater and run for days without stopping, and she was the only one capable of weakening the opposition; her creators.

Shannon knew she would only have a small amount of time each night to carry out her plan, between security inspections. The supersoldier premises were protected by a shield that would require her handprint to enter. But she knew the shield did not communicate her identity to everyone within, and it had let her in once before in Mexico. She doubted she had been blacklisted in Africa. The supersoldier was only as smart as the people in charge, and they had more important concerns to worry themselves with beside a rogue supersoldier who happened to retain 'feelings'. What could she do?

"Watch me," Shannon hissed as she approached and pressed her hand over the shield she knew was there but could not see. The space around her palm shifted and tingled, and turned a bright shade of green. Shannon stepped through.

A large, industrial office building sat in the middle of the sandy plain on the other side of the dunes. It was several hundred metres away but Shannon recognised its design and she knew she had found the right place. She jogged down the dune through the sand. Though her bare feet suffered scratches and briefly burned on top of the hot sand, her injuries healed instantly, so quickly that she felt no pain.

The building only looked to be one storey high but Shannon knew otherwise. She walked straight up to the front door, the sand filtering to a rough gravel path.

Inside the foyer was empty, as she expected it to be. Instead of the elevator, she took the stairs, unafraid of security cameras. There were no security cameras. Nobody could get in without authorisation. Authorisation only required registration on the program database. It was not Shannon's problem that the power-hungry idiots in charge had forgotten to lock her out. They still thought she could be controlled. It was also not her problem that they left the entrance to such a building unmanned, as though no person wishing to cause harm could cross the barrier. After all, no supersoldier thought such mutinous thoughts, no supersoldier could 'plan' without orders. They were not free-thinking creations. Except her.

She took the stairs which led her further underground until there were no more levels, but she did not open the door there. She crouched down near the handle and retrieved the package the back pocket of her jeans. She quietly unravelled several layers of thick plastic until she revealed the grey, explosive putty and lines for detonation. It was a crude and primitive device, but she thought there was irony in not using anything technologically advanced. It never would have survived the swim anyway. She had brought as much as she could.

She rebuilt the bomb crouched in the stairwell and tucked it into one corner. It was the same grey in colour as the construction materials she was familiar with seeing in all their other buildings she had been in over the years. It would camouflage. No supersoldier would be looking around either; their eyes only searched for what they were told to expect to find.

Satisfied her work for that night was complete, she jogged back up the stairs and left at a fast pace, returning to the sea. Diving underground with her eyes open and her hair suspended around her face, her vision was not disturbed by the salty water and she located her equipment easily. This was only the first night of action, and she had a lot of time to sit around waiting. Underwater, she retrieved the heavy, corrosion-proof box and brought it to the dark water's glimmering surface.

She supported its full weight in one hand as she held it above the water. She needed to keep the contents dry, but carrying it with her as she swam had barely delayed her. She retrieved the second packet of seven, and shoved it into her pocket in preparation for the next day.

Shannon knew she could have spent more time in the building because the security inspections were far apart, but she did not feel like getting into fights with supersoldiers who made the regular checks. She did not want to risk a serious injury which would take time to mend. She wanted to make them pay in the most ironic, humorous, and human way possible. A girl had to have some fun, after all. So for another five days she remained hidden beneath the surface of the ocean off the coast, and at night she ventured onto land, into the building, and created another device on a higher floor of the stairwell. She was never seen.

On the seventh day, she rested. Another little fact that would have made her laugh had she been human. Had she been with her friends. She could see the sky and she would lift her head above sea level when the sun reached certain points to check for the guards along the tops of the dunes. Before arriving in Africa she had seen supersoldiers only from a distance. They had never looked for her. She wanted to keep it that way, to take them by surprise.

Upon investigation, she knew they would discover her method and identify her, but who would be investigating once she destroyed the base? They would need to bring somebody in from another part of the country. That would not take much time, but by the time they realised she had not only caused the destruction, but that she had taunted them with her ability and their own trust in things beyond their control, she would be long gone.

Then the real fun could start.

Shannon knew she took an unhealthy pleasure in causing pain, and she knew it was a product of the genetic manipulation she endured to make her a supersoldier, but at least her pleasure was directed at causing pain to the people now inflicting that pain on the world. At least she was using her dry, unfeeling attitude towards death for some good. And it wasn't really unfeeling, if she was honest with herself. She wanted those bastards to pay. She was in it for revenge, and to help the people she knew as friends. Billions of people had died, and if she lost those she knew were her friends she would be truly alone, and she did not want to be alone. She wasn't like 'them'.

Shannon forced herself to forget the people she had left when she felt her pulse race and breathing underwater become more of a strain. Remembering what she kept underneath made her weaker than the machines, and she had to match them. During the days they watched the coast always. Sometimes others arrived; bring messages back and forth between continents. They always swam, and they always came alone. Luckily none of them ever saw Shannon beneath the surface, and none of them had ever made the mistake of swimming right to her. Her plan seemed simple but there were still risks. But no human could have done what she had done, and no alien would have bothered, and she was looking forward to their confusion.

Finally, it was the seventh night. Shannon exited the water and returned to the building. She was not tired or hungry, but she would be glad to have the first stage of her plan over with. She wanted to return to South America. There was no real need to travel to Australia. The supersoldiers there were so isolated almost no humans of the program were there to monitor and control; their orders came from elsewhere. They had congregated in the south-western corner, so the Pacific was still safe territory for the aliens to cross unseen.

Shannon knew South America needed her more. She wanted to be there somehow when it all happened. She knew it would happen quickly, but she could not see into the future. She did not know how it would end. She was not sure what the fate of humans would be. Would they be traded in once again? Would they be exterminated in a war that had very little to do with them? It was hard to tell a human from a supersoldier after all; the key difference was in their mortality, and how could that be figured out 'before' killing them?

But her tasks came first and they always had. She had to prioritise. The building was again deserted as she entered the stairwell by the entrance. She completed a final check of her handiwork, pleased to discover everything intact and operational. She opened every door off the stairwell just a crack, peering in on each floor to double check the contents of the building she was about to blow up. She took more time than she had on previous nights.

As she left the building, she looked to her right to see a supersoldier approaching in the darkness. They had not seen her, and she ducked around the opposite side, her footsteps soundless in the sand. She reached into her pocket to retrieve the last remaining package of explosives, resting it in her palm and slapping it into the cement wall by her hips.

Unlike her own footsteps, she could hear HIS footsteps easily, his heavy boots crunching. Shannon thought it was ridiculous they dressed like military men. They had no 'need' for clothes. Clothes served no real purpose. Shannon wore them to blend in, and because she was still human enough to know that she should have felt discomfort with nudity around others, even if she really didn't. But the supersoldiers around her dressed in what they were told to wear, and they marched. It was an army run by a group of military dictators who had initially created the machines to win wars, then to fight against alien colonisation. Yet that was hypocritical, for all they really wanted was to colonise the world themselves.

Stupid, Shannon told herself. And she was about to blow their plans to Mexico and back. Her finger rested on the detonator she had revealed amidst the final package, pressed into the thick putty which was splattered on the wall. This was going to be big, she thought. Very big.

"I am a supersoldier," she told herself firmly, banishing whatever else she felt or wanted underneath her current self. "I cannot die. I will return from this."

She knew the approaching supersoldier had heard her because he had switched on his torch. She waited, repeating her thoughts silently in her head. I will return from this. I will return from this. She grinned when she came face to face with the military drone, tall and muscular and attractive beneath his khaki uniform. A gun was pointed at her chest instantly and she remained still.

"When you come back," she stated coolly. I will return from this. "Tell your leaders that Eve says go to Hell."

Her finger closed over the detonator, and her world imploded. 

xxx 

Mulder huffed tiredly when he stepped into the doorway of his bedroom to locate his partner and found her reading on the couch. The only light at her disposal was that of the tropical fish tank that spanned the wall of their living room. Her knees were bent up, she had a spiral notebook in her lap, and he could see the edge of her reading glasses against her profile, her head mostly turned from him. He rubbed his bare chest and scraped a hand through his brown hair, having woken confused by her absence from their bed.

"Honey it's late," he groaned, even though it could have been three o'clock in the afternoon. They had re-invented their own time, sleeping when they were tired and declaring that to be their night time. They referred to the time they were awake as 'today' or 'yesterday' or 'tomorrow' but they used no other words. If something had happened several days previously they might say 'a while back' or 'not too long ago', but they shied away from trying to measure what could have been years underneath an Antarctic ice sheet at the south pole.

Though Mulder did not think it had been years. He and Scully had arrived in the southern spring or summer, and it had been constantly light outside for a long time afterwards. Now it was constantly dark and had also been that way for a long time. Shortly it would be light again, he hoped, and then perhaps it might have been one year. The season was the only means left of measuring their time, but even that cycle would, after the first few, become too much effort to notice. They barely went outside. It was ridiculously cold, and the sun was either unbearably strong or nowhere. The only good thing was that they were inland, and they escaped the harsh winds and blizzards that probably plagued the coastal regions. Mulder could never know the weather for sure. He had never been far beyond the complex.

He and Scully did not look much older, another indication they had not been at the complex too long. In fact he thought they looked younger than before they had come to Antarctica. He knew they both certainly felt younger. The time in their lives leading up to that point had been hard, demanding and rough. They had since recovered from the months spent wandering in the desert and all the tears they had cried thinking the other had been lost. They had put healthy weight back on, they had purpose to their days, and they were content and secure. There was an excitement in their smiles when they worked that had not been there in the desert. They no longer made love as some sort of desperate attempt to prove to one another that they would be okay, they both 'were' okay, and they had been allowed to be happy.

Mostly happy, he corrected when he heard Scully swallow a sob. He frowned, walking over to her from behind and leaning his tall form across the low back of the chair, snaking his arms around her shoulders, clad in a familiar, white singlet top. As his eyes came over her shoulder he noticed that she had not been working, as he had first assumed.

"Oh Dana," he whispered painfully when he read the words in the book in her lap under the dim light of their aquarium. Scully had her journal in her lap, one she had written mostly to him in a time of despair, and one which he had found and savoured until he had been lucky enough to be able to return it to her. Now they shared it, and they protected it, but they very rarely opened it. Not since first arriving in Antarctica. Not since time had gotten away from them. Mulder let his eyes drift over one of her paragraphs. It was one of her sad entries, he realised. He had memorised all of her words long ago. Some days she had been hopeful, or funny, but most entries had been sad. She should not have picked that particular entry to read.

"You should go back to sleep," she whispered, her voice low and choked with emotion. Mulder shook his head, effectively nuzzling her as she leaned her cheek towards him.

"No Dana," he replied seriously. "What are you doing up so late?"

"I had a nightmare," she hissed. "About Monica, and I...I wanted to remember. I was sitting here picturing you reading this with her the night you found it. How you told me you did."

"Still has that water stain on the back page I bet," he mumbled. "From one of your own tears. You're not trying to damage the rest of those beautiful pages, are you?"

"No," she whispered, reaching up and brushing her damp cheeks, before settling her hands comfortably around his forearms.

"What was the dream?" Mulder asked curiously once her tears had stopped. "You don't dream about them very often."

"I think it was Nicky. He was a little boy. He came into this room and took my hand in bed and woke me up. He said his mommy was hurt. I got out of bed and instead of stepping into the hallway I was back in the desert on the edge of a cliff. Nicky pointed over the edge and I looked down and Monica had fallen, and she was dead. Nicky said we had to help her, and before I could grab him he scurried down the cliff and slipped, and his body fell on top of hers, and I woke up. I thought I would come out here just to check, and then I thought I should maybe read something to help me settle."

"And reading this particular journal relaxes you?" Mulder asked, suppressing a chuckle and brushing his lips over her ear, signalling to her the question was not meant to be patronising.

"No, but reading little pieces and then thinking about us reading it together in bed when you came back that first week was comforting."

"Then why were you crying?" he asked curiously, looking back down at the journal as she closed it.

"I still feel so much pain when I let myself remember," she whispered. "And I feel like I shouldn't. I feel guilty for holding onto it. Our time, everything that once controlled and defined our lives has been taken from us, including our friends. I was remembering those weeks and months in our house, all of us together, little Nicky when he was born, us sobbing afterwards because of our own son, and just...life, Mulder. Do you know how many anniversaries or birthdays or holidays we've missed? I'm never going to be able to whisper 'Merry Christmas' to you again."

"We can have our own Christmas if you want," he offered. "I don't think we can do much about presents or decorations, but we could have a nice dinner and maybe go outside and build a nativity snowman in the dark."

"Mulder I don't think it would be the same."

"Why not? I could recite Charles Dickens and we could curl up and think about how lucky we are, and how thankful we are to be here, and then you can say Merry Christmas and oh, I could make some non-alcoholic eggnog!"

"Non-alcoholic eggnog," Scully repeated dryly, smirking as he pressed a wet, noisy kiss to her cheek. "Mulder it's not quite the same. I guess I was just feeling nostalgic. You're right. I haven't dreamed about Monica or the others for a while now, and I've had scarier dreams since. I don't know why this bothered me so much."

"It's good to go back and remember every now and then."

"I just don't want to forget who I am," she whispered.

"Scully, you are working here as a scientist. That is who you are, a part of you. And you've taught me a lot, and I like that I'm helping you too, and I think we have a very good grasp on our memories, and our sanity. Are you...having problems you want to talk about?"

"No," she assured him seriously, shaking her head so that her loose, long hair tickled across his face. "No, I'm not depressed or questioning my sanity. You would be able to tell, darling. I'm just a little homesick. I'd give anything to be back on that schooner, sailing, stopping in at different ports. I fantasize about that sometimes. I never got to do a big, exotic trip."

"If you brought a whole bucket of motion sickness patches, I would come," he quipped hopefully. She laughed, tugging on his arms in a silent invitation for him to move around from behind her. His long legs rounded the arm of the chair in a second and he plopped down beside her, the soft cushions bouncing around him. He stretched a long arm along the back of the chair and Scully leant her head back against the white skin of his bicep.

He had been tanned once, from running and then long days in the desert, but he had paled underground, and he was not the only one. His fair partner was as white as the snow. Any freckles that had once adorned her cheeks had faded, and though soft lines of age around her mouth and eyes were visible, Mulder knew he had the same lines, and all he really wanted to do was press his lips along them and listen to her sigh as he kissed her worries away.

He drew his arm back towards him until his hand cupped the crown of her head, and she turned to look at him, her eyes half-open and her smile crooked.

"What?" she asked softly.

"You know what I'm going to miss that I haven't thought about before?" She raised her eyebrows, urging him to continue. "Happy New Year, Scully." Her smile widened. Mulder leant forward on the couch and pressed his lips to hers in a gentle kiss.

"Mm, thank you," she mumbled as he pulled away and smiled kindly at her. She allowed her eyes to reopen slowly and returned his gesture. "I'm sorry for waking you up," she added, observing him as he sat back against the cushions. She turned towards him so that they could face each other and talk. "Mulder, do you ever think about time?"

"Constantly," he reassured her. "I was just thinking about it before. I worked out one day that I think about time as often as I think about sex." Scully giggled. "I was just thinking that based on the light outside, or the lack of it, we haven't been here for a year yet, but it feels like so much longer. Maybe that's why you dreamed Nicky as a boy, not a baby."

"But do you think what we experience is in 'real' time?" she asked. "Do you think we still sleep for eight hours?"

"I think sometimes we sleep longer," Mulder laughed. "But biologically we're still programmed to need a certain amount of sleep. If we had a way to compare now to our old life, I think we might be surprised by how similar a pattern it is. Now, Doctor Scully, I thought you were out here doing work, and I was prepared to let that fly, but did you know you can be homesick in a comfortable bed?" Scully sighed as he rubbed his palm against the back of her head, his hand still trapped there by her skull.

"I don't know if I can sleep tonight," she admitted. "I don't want to take anything either."

"I know just the cure for insomnia," he assured her, pushing her head carefully forward to both free himself and urge her to stand. She complied and turned to him with hands on her hips and a suspicious grimace on her face. She wanted to tell him it was late, and she didn't want to have sex with him, but he was smirking back at her as though he could read her mind and thought her assumptions were funny. He put his finger against his lips and reached his other hand out towards her. Her fingers slid into his palm willingly and she allowed him to lead her back to their room. The cute twinkle in his brown eyes confused and intrigued her.

"Lie down," he urged, pulling back the covers and waiting until she was lying on her back with her hands folded over her stomach before he too got in beside her and pulled the blankets up to their waists. He lay on his side and covered her hands with one of his, smiling as her felt her breath move them. "Close your eyes," he continued. She rolled her eyes in the dark and sighed, but she did as she was told. "Are you relaxed?" he asked.

"No," she mumbled. Mulder grinned cheekily. She certainly sounded tired, but he could feel the tension in the way her hands were folded on her stomach. That was not how she slept.

"Take a few deep breaths," he urged seriously, his grin fading amidst his desire to see her peaceful and not in pain. "I'm going to take you away from Antarctica for a little bit okay?"

"Mulder if you're trying to hypnotise me, you forgot to count me in," she teased, giggling when he squeezed her hands and scoffed. "Okay, okay, I'm 'breathing'," she promised. "I'm not tired." Mulder smirked. He knew she was. "So where are we then?" she asked after a long pause, her voice curious. The woman never could resist a good mystery, he assured himself.

"We are sitting on a white, sandy beach, and that huge luxury sail boat you love so much is moored in the water in front of us, and the sun is setting behind it-"

"Figures in your fantasy you're not ON the boat," she mumbled.

"Do you want to hear the story or not?" he exclaimed. He laughed when she opened her eyes and looked over at him. She was giggling at him again and he loved her for it. He leant down to rub his nose over hers because he knew it settled her. Her laughter faded quickly. He heard her sigh, and he allowed himself a moment to revel in the power they had over one another. Her eyes shut and her lips parted. She let her head turn towards him, calm and trusting.

"Go on Fox," she whispered, relaxing her hands beneath his and linking his fingers with hers.

"I'm sitting behind you on a blanket and I'm nibbling on some sunflower seeds and reading to you. It's an old book, first edition, very delicate but a bit sandy, and you are helping me turn the pages. Can you see the book?" Scully nodded. Mulder shut his eyes and focussed his memory, recalling such a book from his childhood. "Stave one," he began, seeing the words in his photographic memory as though the pages were in front of him. "Marley's Ghost."


	2. Chapter 2

Two

 _North Yungas Road, Bolivia_

"Captain Doggett!"

John turned around in the middle of the dusty road at the sound of his name, called out to him by a young boy. His dark brown hair was long and curly, sitting around his shoulders. He was no more than twelve, and he was out of breath by the time he caught up to John and stared up at him with wide, brown eyes. John's clear, blue eyes stared back down, his light brown hair recently cut short and greying at the edges. His face was tanned and lined from age and sun exposure, though his wide straw hat shaded him from the worst of the day's rays.

"What's up?" he asked casually, offering the boy a smile.

"Problem at Harry's farm," he puffed. "Harry asked me to come get you."

"What now?" John groaned, following the boy as he turned and began leading onwards, walking beside John instead of running ahead. John cast his eye out towards the overcast, mountainous view. They were high up the side of the mountains but the boy had caught up to John on the incline leaving their colony. He had not planned on ascending much further, but he had been looking forward to some thinking time sitting on the edge of the fifteen hundred feet drop-off on what had once been known as the world's most dangerous road.

Now he lived there. Fantastic.

"So what's happenin' at Harry's?" John asked as they took the steep decline steadily, their thin sandals scraping against the rough, loose rocks and dirt.

"More theft," the boy replied. "Told me to come get you, said you told him you were headed up here? What for? You don't wanna leave the colony. You can't. You're the Captain."

"No, I was just taking a break," John assured him with a smile. He thought it was funny everyone called him 'Captain Doggett'. It sent Monica into hysterics every time she heard it. She told him it made him sound like a cartoon character. But he still thought it was better than being called Sheriff. He told most people to call him John or Doggett, but humans still had a way of revering rank, so Captain Doggett it often was.

"Oh good," the boy sighed. "Cos it'd fall to Hell without you here."

John smiled at the sentiment, though it was far from true. By the time he, Monica, Nicky, Skinner, Sarah and Gibson had arrived the colony had been in full swing. John and Skinner had been enlisted as 'police' though definitions of roles were often blurred in a colony trying to re-establish itself as a working town. John did more than just police. After the death of the pervious Captain, he had been promoted by election, and now he found himself the go-to man.

It left him slightly uncomfortable. John had always been comfortable in roles of authority, he had loved his time in the New York Police Department, in the Army and at the FBI, but he had never been in the position of dolling out orders to people who looked up to him. Suddenly the team was looking to him for guidance.

Stuffed if he knew what he was doing.

The colony was nothing like John had expected. After a year wandering in the desert and surviving on rations looted from passing towns, he had expected more of the same; shanty tents along dirty creeks and dry landscapes. They were images he had grown up with from third world countries struggling for survival. He had been preparing himself and Monica for the potential reality of malaria and cholera and other diseases that could plague them and their young son, but though Nicholas had suffered with colds and ear infections, he had so far remained healthy. John could not have been more thankful, and he prayed every night for their fortune to continue.

They lived in relative comfort considering the circumstances. Their colony was a small one, with just eight hundred men and women, and another two hundred children. Residents were mostly South Americans who had survived the bloody supersoldier attacks because they had lived close to the mountainous area which held a large enough deposit of magnetite to keep them safe. Though that had not stopped the military from dropping bombs and killing most, if not all, of the previous twenty thousand strong population.

John had found little evidence of who had been responsible for the bombings, but if the humans in charge of the population knew about the magnetite in the area and did not want a large number of humans to survive there, he was pretty sure his own former country had been responsible for the slaughter.

Locals had hidden in the Amazon jungles and then returned, and the colony had been created. There were others there, though. Quite a few 'survivors' from the North had been brought in, mostly from Mexico which was where John and his friends had been processed. Tourists had been in the area, and not all residents were South American. Some were British, and a lot of the tourists were young Americans and Europeans. They had all grouped together according to their races, something John was trying to gently discourage. None of that mattered anymore, after all. They were only one thousand in number. That was frightening.

Around the perimeter of the town, supersoldiers patrolled, but they were far away. Nobody left the confines of the colony. The furthest they could go involved taking the road John and the boy were carefully descending. It was safe for walking and had been spared by the bombs, but John could not imagine having driven on it.

It did not take them long to return to the town, built into the green hillside. John was sweating and cringing at the exertion. So much for a slow break, he wondered. He was in his late forties but it had taken a while to get used to the elevation. He was fit from walking, and thanks to an improvement in his diet since colonising he felt very healthy, but he was no longer twenty, and the air was always muggy despite their high altitude.

The farm was outside what was left of the city. The residents lived within the ruins of the city, and it meant there was always work to be done, in cultivating their crops and cleaning up their buildings. It had been interesting for John to be involved in organising all the work to be done. Culturally differences existed between the expectations of contribution by gender, and there were language barriers. A lot of people did speak English, though many were not fluent, and many spoke a variant of the Spanish his wife had been taught growing up in Mexico. It had taken Monica a while to brush up, and even she was not yet fluent in what had been the local Spanish dialect, but she helped where she could.

John had picked up the basics with her help, and he used it where he had to, but he really was not very good. He had a heavy, unshakable New York accent, and whenever he tried to speak Spanish people laughed at him. It was a friendly not a taunting laugh, and it helped the locals warm to him because he was trying, and they had elected him after all, but it was not very helpful when it came to talking about serious issues of policing.

Serious issues, he pondered, like the latest 'disastrous' crime to affect the colony, which he discovered upon stalking through the lines of mature trees to find Harry and his staff arguing: theft. His new job was a far cry from patrolling the streets of New York, that was for sure.

"John!" Harry exclaimed excitedly when he saw him. Harry's farm was actually Harry's orchard, and had always been Harry's orchard. John knew the short, brown-skinned, sixty year old man was Aymaran and he spoke Aymara, but luckily his dealings with the markets and tourists over the years had taught him English very well. He was one of the more powerful locals left in the colony, and had hidden in the nearby mountains when the bombs came. He had no remaining family, and his fruit orchard had survived because of the colonists. Not far from his orchard were other successful continuing farms which produced various vegetables and coffee.

Everybody was required to work except new mothers. If men and women weren't working outside they were indoors teaching the children or preparing food. People could do whatever they wanted. John ensured there were no roles defined by gender, but the prevalence of the local culture in the colony meant that most of the women chose to work domestically. Some of the whites who had survived as locals or tourists had mixed it up a bit; one of the male tourists had been a Canadian teacher and the other a British doctor. The doctor's girlfriend was an engineer. John knew the locals thought they were strange, but they needed all the help they could get, so everybody's talents were appreciated and used the best way they could be.

"What's the problem Harry?" he asked, stretching his hand out for Harry to shake in a customary, respectful greeting. Harry complied but started rattling off an explanation in his own language before catching John's unmoved, narrow blue eyes. He stopped, took a deep breath, and pointed his finger at the singled out local man who was standing apart from the rest of the group, all gathered around to take part in the commotion.

"He put fruit down his pants!" Harry exclaimed. "They saw him eating it."

"True?" John asked, turning to the local. John knew everybody's faces and thought the young man's name was Adan. He was married to a woman called Ana. They were in their late twenties with two young children. He raised his eyebrows expectantly. He knew Adan understood English just as well as Harry, and he expected an answer.

"I didn't put any down my pants," he replied. "I just ate some. I was hungry man!"

"We're all hungry," John replied. "But we got limited resources here cos we can't get to the outer farms that used to bring everything in, and this place is surrounded by coca, so every time you take a piece o' fruit for yourself without putting it in the collection it's less food for the community to share. Do I have to frisk you Adan?"

"Frisk?" he asked cautiously. John patted himself down, touching his sweaty, long-sleeved cotton shirt and long, brown pants. Adan shook his head, reaching into his pockets and pulling them out, revealing nothing but a handkerchief.

"I know you're probably used to snacking as you go, but if Harry tells you not to, then you can't. Otherwise you might find yourself reassigned to town duties, okay?"

"Yeah, okay." John sighed, shaking his head as he leant forward to shake Adan's hand. After then going through the 'now say sorry to your boss' routine he was becoming increasingly familiar with, John left the group and returned to his home.

There was a climb from the farm to what was left of the town, but at five thousand feet elevation a few extra metres did not tend to matter. He waved to and greeted as many people as he could as he walked down the main street and headed straight for his 'office', a tiny house which had survived the bombings. John was happy to see his friend sitting on top of the front desk, slapping the heels of his sandals into one of the desk's legs. His bald head was downturned towards the book in his lap, his glasses dusty but unbroken.

"What are you readin'?" he asked. Walter Skinner looked up. Formerly John's boss at the FBI, Skinner was now a deputy, and he was in charge of overseeing construction. It was a big job but Skinner was a natural leader, and with the help of Julie, the European civil engineer, roofs and walls were being repaired much faster than John had expected. When they had first arrived at the colony, almost no reconstruction work had been carried out. Now at least people were somewhat organised and the shelters more reliable.

"Brushing up on my geography," Skinner answered, tilting the book downwards to reveal the atlas to John. They smiled at each other. "Thought you were taking off?" Skinner asked.

"I got called back. Some numb-nuts at Harry's is eating off the orchard, which is totally against Harry's new harvesting policy. The guy's really trying to do his best, but it's taking a while for everyone to catch on. Thought I'd just head home. Anything I should know from your end?"

"Uh, let's see. Broken up three arguments here in the street since you left. The next Church service has been scheduled for tomorrow. I've allowed Xilona and Nathan out to the coca to collect some more and I've been sitting here trying to decide whether its use here is worth cracking down on or not."

John nodded. They'd had the discussion several times, amongst themselves and with the other locals who had leadership roles within the colony. The leaves of the coca crops could be manufactured into cocaine, and the crop was prevalent in the area because it had always turned much higher profits than the fruit or coffee plants brought in to try to minimise its cultivation. Because of its illicit uses and their knowledge of the effects of cocaine in the old cities, John and Skinner were both predisposed to wanting nothing to do with the plant.

But traditionally it had uses, as they were still learning. Chewing on the leaves did not actually produce psychoactive effects. It was used to treat altitude sickness and as a stimulant it acted as an anaesthetic for a wide range of aches and pains. It numbed the mouth. It was a popular tea. It was in fact so ingrained in the local culture that John knew it would be impossible to remove it entirely, and a part of him respected its medicinal uses. Luckily, Doctor Xilona Maria de Castra knew what she was doing. Because the crops were further from the town, John had managed to restrict access. Nobody was stopped from going there, but the locals were all afraid of the supersoldiers and of the bombs coming back. None of them really wanted to go to the crop, and even though John and others knew it was close enough to still be safe, a little suspicion amongst the locals was not necessarily a bad thing.

"I think we'll just have to live with it," John told Skinner. "Besides, I reckon it's what they gave Sarah when she got sick coming here, with the altitude." Skinner hummed, nodding thoughtfully. "Well it's time for my Siesta, I'm beat-"

"Don't you have a language class tonight?" Skinner asked. "Cos I do."

"Yeah, I'll be there. Mon will make sure I'm there. And I gotta take Nicky off her hands for a little while anyway. She wasn't looking so crash hot this morning."

"I haven't seen her today," Skinner mumbled. "Stella was telling me she bowed out of kitchen but I never got a chance to look in on them. You seen Gibson?"

"Yeah on my way in. He's bringing wood in. For such a little dude he's pretty strong."

"Konrad and Sarah want to know if they can repair the school's fence," Skinner added.

"And they want my permission because?" John asked, laughing. "Do we care?"

"I told them it was okay. They wanted me to clear it with you though, so in case they ask. So I'll see you at dinner?"

"Yeah. Let's hope we can both stay off duty long enough to actually eat tonight."

"Just tell Ricky he's in charge," Skinner suggested. "He's been working hard today though. I had a lot of translation issues."

"I'll bet," John teased. "Thanks Skinner. You don't mind hanging around here until dinner?"

"No, go check on your wife and kid," Skinner assured him casually, smiling. "If something disastrous happens I'll send someone for you. El Presidente gotta rest."

"Don't call me that," John laughed.

"Just as long as El Presidente remembers he has to write a speech for Church tomorrow."

"Ah crap, again?" he groaned. "You know, I'm glad they like me and listen to our ideas and stuff, but I swear they all want these updates at the end of mass just so they can roll off their seats laughin' at our accents."

"Puts a smile on their face for a week," Skinner taunted dryly. "Better you than me."

John chuckled, rolling his eyes and committing the task to memory, before leaving the building and wandering back down the street. The afternoon sun was hot and the sky above him had grown more overcast. If they were very unlucky, it would rain. The weather had been the most inhibiting factor of their construction efforts. Roofs were still torn open and the dirt turned quickly to mud and clay. None of the rain so far had been heavy or for long periods, but John knew that the wet season would approach eventually, and so to all of them, getting the construction finished was a big priority.

His own home was still only partially finished. He did not want to be seen as the leader who took care of his own selfish needs before those of others. He, Monica, Nicholas and Gibson all lived in the undamaged half of the two storey, red brick house. It was close to the centre of town without being amidst the taller buildings and hotels. Many people resided in the blocks of units and hotels that were safe enough to live in, and John was grateful they had been given a house with some privacy and distance, even if half of it was boarded up.

"I'm back!" he shouted, not sure who, if anybody, would be home. But he heard his son calling out from the upstairs bedroom area and knew Monica would also not be far. He grinned, jogging up the steps. At the top of the stairs was a crude but sanded wooden barrier they put up to prevent any accidental falls when Nicky wandered out of their sights.

Over the top of the barrier, John saw a mop of brown curly hair. Little white hands curled over the edge and a forehead appeared, then a pair of large, round brown eyes.

"Hey Nicholas," John greeted, hurrying the last few steps and peering over the barrier. Nicky lowered himself back onto his feet, his palms pressed against the wood for balance. John had tested it several times, and there was no way Nicky could push it forward. His head tilted back against his shoulders as he looked all the way up at John with a wide grin. John didn't wait for the arms to go up before reaching down to scoop up his son, who they thought was one and a half. Monica had tried to keep track at first, but they had lost their way and given up. As long as he developed over time they were happy, and he could walk and say a few words; as far as being happy went they were ecstatic.

"Dada," he greeted, giggling when John planted a noisy kiss on his plump cheek. Nicky had John's pixie ears and it looked as though he would have the same strong chin and jaw, but he had Monica's olive skin and brown hair and eyes. Nicky's brown eyes even had the same wise look that Monica gave him all the time. Nicky looked almost nothing like John's first son, who had been murdered at the age of seven many years ago when John had been first married and in the NYPD. Luke had been blonde with blue eyes, just as John had been as a child, and Barbara had been blonde and blue-eyed also.

Nicky was less serious than Luke, more chatty, even at such a tender age, and he was not a happy morning baby. It took him a while to wake up. He was definitely a lot like his mother, though John did not mind. In many ways the differences between Nicky and Luke helped John deal with the fact that he had a son again, and that opportunity was one he thought had been lost for good when Luke had died. It seemed less like replacing Luke, and John found he was as awed by his second son as he had been by his first. He was even more protective and tender, a product of Luke's loss and the current circumstances in which they survived.

Monica felt the same way. Their son was everything to them, and such a powerful source of hope and strength. He was not sure they would have made it through the desert months as well as they did if Nicky had not kept them going.

"Ah, I thought it must have been you," Monica teased softly from the doorway to their bedroom. "The way he ran out of there." John smiled as he stepped over the barrier with Nicky cuddled against his side.

"Mon," he greeted, pecking her briefly on the lips and then standing back to quickly look her over. She was dressed in a singlet and loose cotton ankle-length pants, but she did not have as much colour in her face as he was used to. "Air a bit thin for you today?" he asked.

"Yeah," she sighed, leaning against the frame and resting a hand over her stomach. "I think I've picked something up. I'm not keeping anything down. I had to bow out of kitchen duties; I don't want to pass it around. The last thing you need to deal with is an epidemic." John chuckled. "I thought I'd keep Nicky home from playgroup too, just in case."

"Looks like we might get some rain."

"I know, the buckets are ready," she promised with a gentle smile. "Seen Gibson today?"

"Just before, briefly, but he was busy. Did you see Sarah?"

"No, I didn't leave the house." John frowned at her, worried. "I just don't want to pass this onto anyone, least of all Sarah. She had such a hard time with the altitude already. If Walter's been busy all day I'd say she's been at the school anyway."

"Taken anything?" he asked. She shook her head, smirking.

"You know I hate that coca, it tastes disgusting and it's practically cocaine. I've kept some water down though, which is something. Are you heading into town for dinner?"

"Yeah, and I'm gonna have to make an appearance at language class but if you're sick I might not stay."

"You should stay, you need the practice," she urged. "I've just been sleeping and playing with Nicky. We'll be right. I'm not on my deathbed John. I think I must have swallowed some bad water, that's all."

"All right. Has bub had a bath today?"

"No," she replied. "I was going to but I wasn't up to it. I might have a cold shower later."

"Not a problem. If you watch him while I get it ready, I'll do it now before it gets dark, then I'll come back and we should have enough time to get scrubbed up before I have to head back into town. You want me to bring you any food?"

"I'm good with what we've got here," she assured him. "Lost my appetite." He nodded, leaning forward to peck her pale cheek and returning their son to her arms.

"I'll take care of the water," he promised gently, urging her back into the bedroom before hurrying downstairs to inspect their water tanks. The mains were still connected but there was no hot water, nothing to power any sort of electric heating or lighting. Because nobody was sure how the climate would be affected by the environmental changes in the north, when John arrived a water plan had already been put in place by the previous captain. They would conserve everything they could in the first year until they could measure their rainfall and then they would make decisions about usage. It was not as though a million people needed daily showers anymore, after all.

That year had passed before John had arrived, and restrictions had since been lifted. Showers were allowed but pressure was low. Rainfall had been just below average in the first year, and there was plenty of water nearby with waterfalls and rapids not too long a walk away. But there was still no hot water, so if they showered it was bitterly cold, and Nicky hated it. They had a little bath, so instead of the shower they filled the bath with water boiled on the gas stove and waited for it to cool. It took time to prepare and involved lots of trips up and down the stairs. John could understand why Monica would not have had the energy. They boiled all their drinking water and were not allowed to swallow in the shower.

Once the upstairs bath was comfortably warm John wandered into the main bedroom. Monica was under the covers curled up on her side, and Nicky was sitting next to her playing with his toy telephone they had found. He was babbling into it and Monica was mumbling as though she was on the other end.

"Hello!" Nicky exclaimed into the receiver. "Hello mommy!" John grinned, reaching over Nicky's shoulder to press the hang-up button. He made a long beeping sound and Nicky looked up at him with a curious frown. John enjoyed the telephone toy, and he knew Monica liked it too. It was a part of their past that Nicky would probably never experience for himself. That was sad, but they were happy to teach him what it had been. They wanted him to know what their world had been like.

"Bath time buddy," he urged, grabbing his son around the waist and pulling him up, zooming him around and listening to him laugh as he walked them both into the bathroom. They had set a little table up in the corner beside the narrow sink that had a lot of Nicky's things on it, and Nicky sat on the cushion there comfortably, tugging his top up his stomach and chatting about water. "Yeah, that's right," John laughed. He was halfway through undressing his son when Monica rushed in, leaned over the sink and threw up. It sounded painful and John cringed as she gagged, reaching for the tap to rinse her mouth under a pitiful stream of water.

"So much for keeping the water down," she groaned when a tense silence fell over the room. John wanted to reach out and touch her back but he could not turn his attention from his son who had recently discovered his ability to wander and who had no real concept of the difference between sitting on the floor and sitting on a table a metre off the ground.

Monica sank to her knees on the tiles, breathing heavily. She reached behind her and wrapped a hand around John's bare ankle, rubbing softly for her own comfort, aware he couldn't touch her himself.

"Feeling better?" he asked hopefully. She shook her head and he sighed. It was extremely unusual for Monica to admit she was unwell. She had gotten through the entire journey as one of the healthiest members of their group. At first, John, Gibson and Mulder had watched over her health like a hawk and fed her double rations, and then Scully had joined them and monitored her even more. With a young son, she-

John's thoughts stopped mid-sentence when it dawned on him 'why' Monica had been the healthiest person in their group. In addition to being the healthiest, for a long time she had also been the sickest and the reasons why were identical.

"Uh, Mon," he drawled, not sure how to broach the idea, not sure if he wanted to know the answer or if she had even considered it. "Did this just come on today?"

"Yeah," she mumbled, moving away from the sink to sit back against the bath. She smiled at him weakly, reaching for her boy. John quickly finished undressing Nicky and handed him down. "Are you going to get in as well?" Monica asked, carefully seating Nicky in the lukewarm water and reaching for a washcloth.

"I was gonna get in after," John replied. "Unless you wanna wash my back too darlin'."

"I don't think you want me to. I might infect you," she groaned. "Either that or I'd fall asleep against you. But this little one doesn't take so long huh?" she teased more brightly, gently splashing Nicky and giggling as he splashed her back. John sat on the edge of the bath and watched them happily. He let his hand massage Monica's closest shoulder but she did not feel tense. Her arms making sure Nicky did not fall back in the bath were strong, but the rest of her looked very weak, and with his free hand he scratched his head, unable to help his thoughts returning to the possible causes of her symptoms.

They had been so incredibly careful, but before she had gotten pregnant with Nicky she had only thrown up in front of him once, after eating something questionable on a stakeout for an X File that had never eventuated. It had never eventuated because he had been so distracted and worried by her hurling into the gutter he had missed the suspect evading them, never to return. He had driven Monica home, walked her in, watched her collapse onto her bed and listened to her tell him she was 'fine', that it was just food poisoning and that the sausage stand on the corner was obviously not as good as he thought it was.

He chuckled and she looked up at him, her smile wide. John knew she was happy they had a home, and happy they could do normal things with their son like give him a bath, and he knew she thought that was why he had laughed.

John shrugged innocently, not wanting her to be aware of his thoughts too soon. After all, he could be on the wrong track. Maybe she was just sick. People did get sick in the colony. The environment was tropical and the conditions perfect for all sorts of bacteria. The two doctors in the colony did a fantastic job of working with what was available to them, but all sorts of injuries and illnesses had the potential to affect them.

Those first few months leading up to the invasion and then afterwards, in the basement and the first month in the desert, had been awful for all involved, particularly Monica. Seeing and hearing her throw up again had brought back all the memories of those months in cramped and crowded conditions, and it left an annoying niggle of déjà vu in his stomach. But surely if it were the case she would know, and would tell him. She genuinely thought she was sick.

John knew that part of the rush on construction and the need to get their farming organised was due to their expanding population. The only people allowed in via the processing centres had to be of child rearing age and capability. Mulder and Scully would have been turned away because Scully couldn't have children, so John and Monica had been forced to say goodbye to them. Apparently they had gone to Antarctica, but John really could not be sure, and a part of him didn't quite believe it.

As a result of the processing centre's rules for survivors of the north who ventured south, and as a result of the situation and the truth that John and Skinner had spread upon their arrival, a waning population was not a concern. John knew he had not been in the colony for very long, and already ten babies had been born. Every time there were a lot of smiling faces and lots of chatter. He knew twenty other women were pregnant. It was his job to know as much about the town as he could, and he could not escape people telling him. Everyone was keen to brag.

But he and Monica had been careful, although being careful in the jungles of South America was not as foolproof as being careful in the old cities. They had not been using any contraception, but Monica had always known her body so well, and she was open to communicating about it. He remembered when Nicky was born in Mulder and Scully's home in Virginia, and how different the experience had been to Luke's birth. No epidural, for one thing, but Monica had approached the whole situation with a completely different attitude to his first wife. She certainly understood herself, so he had always trusted her. He knew she would never 'trick' him, the thought barely entered his mind, so either he was overreacting and jumping to conclusions or she had been as blindsided as him.

"Dada, come in!" Nicky exclaimed, cupping water into his little hand and throwing his arm upwards, splashing John square in the chest. Monica laughed loudly as John was shaken by his thoughts. He leant over the bath, bracing himself on the edge, until his face was very close to his son's. His expression was serious but gentle, and Nicky did not look away. He stared up at John with wide, amused brown eyes and a look in them that told John exactly how mischievous his little boy was going to be. Mischievous, and as stubborn as his mama.

"Boo." Nicky giggled. He used his hands to push John's face away and they laughed.

"Aw, you've been rejected," Monica teased, resting the back of her wet hand against her forehead and cheeks, cooling herself with the water there. It did not go unnoticed by John.

"Are you runnin' hot or cold?" he asked cautiously.

"Hot," she replied. "But I'm okay. A cold shower should do it."

"Why don't you get ready for it and I'll get Nicky dried off, and then I'll watch you? I don't want you to fall or something."

"John I won't pass out," she assured him with a grin, but he knew her well enough to spot the flitter of doubt that she quickly hid.

"Have you been dizzy today?" he asked. She rolled her eyes but nodded reluctantly. "Then I'm not going anywhere til you're back in bed." He got down on his knees beside her to take over Nicky's bath and watched as she slowly pushed herself to her feet, holding onto the bath and then the wall for balance before silently returning to their bedroom.

He turned back to Nicky, who had been splashing the water around happily, content to listen to his parents talking. He was used to being the centre of attention, but from the moment of his birth he had been surrounded by adults and a lot of adult conversation. Sometimes he was content listening, and John was grateful for that. He'd had his hard days, with ear infections and some colic, but overall he had been a content little baby. Hopefully he would be a content little toddler, but John knew their luck would have to run out eventually, and he had a feeling Nicky was going to make them work for the next few years at least.

John finished washing Nicky and then picked him up to dry and dress him. Monica returned to the bathroom with a fresh towel and no clothes, and headed for the shower, turning the cold water on and stepping under the low pressure. John looked on and she did not slide the shower door shut. It let him know she was having some troubles; if she fell she wanted to be able to fall out of the shower onto the floor and not through the thin glass. John didn't mind, and he did not plan on going very far. If she fell, he was going to catch her. Or try.

He announced he was taking Nicky to his room and settled him in the playpen before hurrying back to the bathroom. It was a tossup between the cool, shallow bath or the cold, trickling shower, and he chose the latter as he undressed, stepping cautiously in behind his wife and shutting the door. She didn't turn around but she knew he was there, and she stepped forward so he could get wet as well.

John flinched when the cold water hit his skin, the icy temperature sending a shiver down his spine and causing goosebumps to rise on his skin. Monica's body in front of him radiated sickly heat and as one arm slid around her stomach the other lifted to touch her forehead.

"Mon, you're definitely not well darlin'," he told her. She chuckled, leaning her head back against his shoulder and relaxing in his arms. "Is anyone else sick we know?"

"We know everyone John," she reminded him with a soft chuckle. "But as for people I spend a lot of time with, no, nobody else. Yet. I think I drank some bad water this morning."

"You're not pregnant, are you?" he asked against her ear. He could not put it off any longer. Even if his idea was insane, he needed to know what she thought. Monica stiffened in his arms and as he watched her he could feel her thinking. The annoying niggle of déjà vu in his stomach became a tug of longing which surprised him as her failure to answer hung in the air.

"Oh shit," she whispered finally. "Maybe. What made you ask?"

"You haven't been this sick since Nicky," he replied. "It's not like you, and you don't have any abdominal cramps like you would if you'd drunk some bad water." He resisted the urge to lower his hand to her abdomen. She turned to face him, the water trickling against the back of her head. She narrowed her brown eyes and they darkened as she thought seriously, her fingers around his neck stroking in a gentle, pondering rhythm. Her eyes lifted to meet his after several minutes and John's eyes widened as hers got even narrower. "We can give it a few days, and see if you feel better before we start looking into it," he offered. She nodded.

"John, would you be upset?" she asked softly, her very narrow eyes widening with worry. He smiled, shaking his head and pulling her to him for a tight hug. She shivered as he scooped some cold water into his palm and rubbed it over her hot lower back. "Thanks for the suggestion, Captain," she mumbled, content against his shoulder. John chuckled, happy. He had a tiny feeling she thought he could be right, and he was suddenly excited, and very proud.


	3. Chapter 3

Three

Gibson surveyed the food in front of him as he sat down next to his friend and Skinner's niece, Sarah. Eating had been something they had all needed to readjust to since the invasion. The whole concept required an open mind. For most of their journeys, they had survived on preserved and packaged foods; canned fruit, tuna, potato chips, stale crackers and lollies. Scully had gotten a lot of them onto supplements as well. They'd always had water even if it had been seriously rationed, and on long walks they had sports drinks to help rehydrate them.

In the colony food was much fresher, but there were things missing which ordinarily would have come in from other parts of the country or been imported from nearby countries. They were growing fresh fruit and vegetables but a lot of crops would not be ready for harvesting again for several more months. Dinner was often basic and based on beans or fruits, but shortly they hoped to have a little wheat or potatoes, and nobody dared complain.

Gibson did not mind, but what he missed was the variety that being a looter had allowed them. Residing on the side of a mountain, they did not have any opportunities to walk to a nearby chemist and grab whatever supplements they wanted, or pocket a few packets of jellybeans for those days when walking really zapped them. There had been benefits to the situation in the north. It had been an unsustainable life because water was finite, but overall he had enjoyed himself.

He was startled by Sarah's hand resting on his thigh under the table and she leaned towards him. Her head was merely tilted in his direction, her brown eyes unseeing, her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail.

"What are you thinking?" she asked. "You're very quiet."

"I was just craving jellybeans," he answered, grinning when she laughed. He could hear everything she was thinking, and he knew she liked him, but she wasn't sure how she liked him, and he did not want to push the issue.

Sarah was four years older than him, and she was tall, lean and very pretty. She had been an archaeology major, and she was Skinner's niece. Gibson, on the other hand, was five foot tall if he was lucky. He wore thick glasses, had an awkward gait because of his long arms, and his brown hair was spiky and hard to control. He did not consider himself attractive or sexy, but he found himself attracted to the woman beside him. That's right, he told himself. Sarah was a 'woman', but he did not see himself as a man. He had never even had a girlfriend.

"I miss chocolate," she confessed, giggling and returning her careful attention to the plate in front of her. She poked at it warily with her fork before putting it in her mouth. Gibson had collected her dinner for her just as he always did, but he knew it had to be incredibly hard for her to eat something she could not see.

"Is it okay?" he asked her. She hummed, nodding and squeezing his thigh. Gibson shifted on the seat uncomfortably and she removed her hand, a little smirk on her thin lips. Gibson knew what she was thinking and he knew she was right, but where Sarah was concerned he liked to pretend he could not read her mind. Instead of making him more brazen, it made him a lot more nervous. He had gradually come to understand why Mulder and Scully had taken so long to share their feelings with one another. If he could read minds and was scared, no wonder they, without the benefit of his powers, had both been so terrified of losing one another. But they had known in other ways, he conceded. More subtle but more natural ways.

Gibson had a reprieve from his thoughts when they were joined at their table by Xilona and her husband David. Gibson had been working with David on fixing up the playgroup area beside the school. Xilona was one of the two doctors. They were lucky to have two, though Nathan had been on holidays at the time of the invasion and forced to stay. Both doctors were young and relatively inexperienced compared to, for example, Scully.

Xilona was a local in her late twenties, who had completed her studies in Brazil and since returned. She was petite with smooth, brown skin and dark hair and rounded intelligent brown eyes. Her smile was wide and friendly. Her husband was around Xilona's age. He was tall and thin, but Gibson knew he was strong and flexible. He had worked in one of the local hotels. Both had been assets to the colony and had been very welcoming to the late newcomers. Xilona had been particularly nice to Sarah, helping her to learn the landscape with her cane and listening to her stories about how her blindness had come about.

Everybody remembered the light, but nobody else had been close enough to it to lose their sight and survive.

"Buenos noches Xilona y David," Gibson greeted. Sarah grinned, silently thanking Gibson for letting her know who had sat down opposite them at the small table.

Eating in the colony had become an interesting compromise of space and community. The old markets, which had been extremely popular, existed now in a 'help-yourself' fashion at meal times, with servers rotating on a kitchen roster. Pre-prepared food was made in the kitchens of the old hotels and brought to the markets. Other fresh food stalls were set up.

Even though everyone was hungry and there were no rules about how much they could eat, most people were careful not to be seen to be eating too much. Everybody was afraid and there was a strong focus on helping the whole community. However, Gibson knew there were individuals who would be better off not in the colony. Unfortunately since they had been in the area at the time of the invasion they had not been screened at the processing centre and there was nothing anyone could do about their disgruntled, unhelpful presence.

Tables had been constructed or retrieved from indoors and brought into what had been the market street, set up along the winding stretch of road. Twice a day they were filled as people trickled in constantly for a few hours at a time in search of lunch and dinner. Most people had some food at home for breakfasts, and they ate two large meals a day to keep them going. Gibson's and most other people's stomachs had adjusted to the routine.

People could sit anywhere, and most tables could seat four to six people. Gibson and Sarah had picked a small table of four. Sarah felt out of her depth amongst a lot of people speaking another language, and Gibson's main priority besides helping the community was keeping Sarah comfortable.

"Where is Walter tonight?" David asked, his English very good. Gibson tilted his head to the side and pointed downhill to more crowded tables.

"Down there somewhere with Ricardo and Elmo and the other leaders."

"So when are you gonna start sitting with them?" Xilona asked. "Got your heart set on leadership as well?"

"Not really," Gibson replied. "I'm happy where I am doing what they tell me. Less responsibility. Plus they're doing a really good job. It's cool there's a balance there of locals and people who were sent here."

"Yeah they've kept it together," David agreed. "Listening to the locals is important." Gibson nodded. "But you're pretty good at that yourself Gibson. You should put your hand up next time they need someone. I'm sure since you live with Doggett he'll let you."

"I don't want everyone to think that's 'why' though," Gibson replied. "If I get anywhere like that I want to earn it. John and Walter earned their spots because of what they'd done in their lives and their careers before the invasion. They've done more than I could ever see myself doing, training and fighting and being in law enforcement. That's not really me."

"I still can't believe you all walked all the way from the United States," Xilona laughed. "North-east corner, right?" Gibson and Sarah nodded. "That's incredible."

"We stole a LOT," Gibson deadpanned, causing the other occupants of the table to laugh. "So what did you do today Xilona?"

"I went with Nathan to get more Coca," she replied. "We're going to be using it as the dominant medicine from now on."

"Oh good," Gibson smirked. "I always wondered what cocaine tasted like pure."

"Very funny," Xilona chuckled, eating her dinner. "Why don't you ask Sarah?"

"It tastes BAD," Sarah huffed. "I wouldn't want to use it all the time though, but it did work."

"When will you run out of the more traditional supplies?" Gibson asked.

"Soon," Xilona replied. "I'm afraid what Nathan and I are concerned about is if we experience an outbreak of yellow fever or malaria or cholera or dengue or typhoid."

"I think we were vaccinated for most of those," Sarah mentioned casually.

"Yeah, you were, and some of the rest of these people were, and most of these locals have tough guts, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen to all of us really fast."

"Would that cause a lot of deaths?" Sarah asked softly.

"Depends on the severity of the cases and what we're dealing with. In a lot of cases all we can do is give fluids and monitor but an outbreak could put a lot of people off their feet for a long time and yeah, there's a chance older or younger members of the community could succumb more easily to infections and dehydration. The good news is we've got plenty of Quinine here for malaria and we do have water. So uh, all cases of aches, fatigue, vomiting or diarrhoea are to be reported to us asap. Spread it around."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure everybody knows," Gibson chuckled. "Have you had anything like that before we came?"

"Thankfully no, so we still have antibiotics and vaccines here, but they are limited and I don't see any more coming in, do you?" Gibson grimaced. "So we're going back to the old days, where people did die from these things. It's something we will just have to live with."

Sarah flinched when Gibson suddenly reached out and grabbed her thigh. Gibson always touched her to help her with directions or to get her attention, but never so roughly.

"What's wrong?" she asked. She couldn't see, but he bit his lower lip and shook his head.

"Nothing," he mumbled, but his strong fingers remained digging into her thigh. Sarah frowned, unconvinced.

"I'm sure we'll be fine," Xilona was continuing. "Nathan hasn't had much experience with a lot of the potential problems we'll face and I've been spending a lot of time taking him through all the more common infections and injuries that are sustained in this part of the world. I actually haven't had much experience with anything not able to be treated using modern medicine, so it will be a learning curve for us all. He's a very good doctor. But the purpose of this conversation is that I have a question: as you have both been vaccinated, should any outbreak occur would you be willing to assist me in a nursing capacity?"

"I'm blind," Sarah stated obviously. Xilona laughed. "I'd help if you could find me something to do that I could do without...risking anybody's lives or health."

"There are always things to do in those situations," Xilona promised. "Do you think Captain Doggett's wife would also be willing?"

"Yes except for her son," Sarah replied, reaching for Gibson's hand when his grip on her got even tighter. She let her palm rest over his wrist, trying to urge him to relax. She did not know if he was keeping a straight face, but Xilona and David had not mentioned anything, so perhaps all his energy was going into not showing them whatever it was he was feeling. "I think they gave Nicky every shot they could but he was only around one at the time. Monica and John would be deathly afraid of anything happening to that boy."

"Hi John," Gibson announced suddenly, causing Sarah to snap her mouth shut and Xilona and David to turn around. Gibson had given them enough warning that John had not overheard their very serious conversation, and they all offered him smiles. "Alone tonight?"

"Yeah," John replied, waving his hand around his face to stave off insects. "Xilona, a word please?"

"At your service, Captain," she teased, jumping off her chair and following him away from the people and fiery torch light. David excused himself to go and speak to his other friends and Sarah gripped Gibson's hand against her, turning to him in the chair. She could feel his breath on her face and she could sense his mind was elsewhere. She hoped that he heard her.

Are we alone now? What is wrong?

"I left really early this morning," Gibson mumbled vaguely in reply to her silent questions. "They weren't up yet, but I just heard John then. Monica's really sick."

"What?" Sarah gasped. "What's wrong? Is it bad? Like what we were just talking about? Is that why you grabbed me?"

"I heard him coming," Gibson confirmed. "I don't know how much I should tell you."

"I'll act surprised," she hissed desperately, squeezing his hand. "Please Gibson."

"Try not to look so scared and I'll tell you," he urged, glancing at her face and watching her mask of control go down. She exhaled and plastered a steady, unmoved expression on her face. He smirked. "Good," he whispered. "John doesn't think it's that bad, he's just being cautious because she hasn't kept any water down today. Monica sounds like she wasn't very worried, but Xilona's mind is on what we were just discussing also, she's been worrying about it a lot, and she's going to want to...She does want to, check on Monica right away."

"But how do you diagnose these things?"

"Blood under a microscope is the best they can do here. I'm not sure how sterile the needles are though, cos they would need to save them for the future."

"Why aren't they worried?"

"They think she might be pregnant," he whispered.

"WHAT?" she exclaimed loudly, drawing the attention of some nearby colonists. Gibson chuckled, nodding when he saw Skinner approaching them. Gibson knew they were sitting very close together and holding hands, and he shifted slightly back from her along their seat.

"Shh, your uncle's coming," he whispered. Sarah nodded, refocussing.

"Hi," Skinner announced, taking a seat and grinning. "Haven't seen the two of you all day. Not interrupting, am I? Not eavesdropping, were we?"

"Why would I be doing such a naughty thing like that?" Gibson asked innocently. Skinner laughed. "We were actually just talking to Xilona and David about all the medicines they have here. Really interesting."

"Really primitive," Sarah corrected. "Uncle Walter I think we were safer in the desert."

"Try not to let yourself get scared," Skinner assured them both seriously. "We're a very healthy group so far and everybody is taking precautions. This may seem like the dark ages sometimes but everyone here knows the risks and the preventative measures. A lot of these people have been living here a very long time. And you've been vaccinated."

"But what if they don't work?" Sarah asked, thinking about Monica.

"We're just taking every day as it comes, honey," Skinner replied, reaching over and squeezing her shoulder at the worry in her voice. "We'll be okay."

"They're coming back," Gibson commentated. Skinner wondered briefly who he was talking about until he saw John and Xilona returning from the darkness. John pegged Gibson with a knowing glance.

"So are you coming with us?" he asked.

"I want to go too," Sarah insisted.

"Oh, we've shared?" John taunted Gibson with a smug smirk. "Sarah I think you should stay with Skinner. I'm sure Gibson will come find you first thing in the morning, but I'd like him home with us in case he has to mind Nicky."

"Okay," she whispered, her voice shaking with fear.

"What's going on?" Skinner asked. "Is it Monica?"

"She's all right," John promised, holding both hands up to urge his friends to calm. His own thoughts had been mixed and confused; he was worried and excited and frightened, and he could see that had confusion had rubbed off on Gibson and Sarah. "But I want Xilona to check her out tonight. Skinner, I want you to postpone language class until tomorrow morning, and tell everyone here to pack up and go home. As of tomorrow, as a precautionary measure we don't stay out after dusk. I don't care how local they all think they are. And I want everyone to make sure they've got proper mosquito netting in their homes."

"Okay," Skinner nodded seriously. "Nothing after dusk at all?"

"That's right," John confirmed. "All night classes will be held during the day. If that means we fall behind in some construction so be it. Gibson?"

"I'm coming," he promised, standing and reaching for Sarah's head, touching her cheek briefly. "I'll come to your house soon as I can," he added, ignoring Skinner's observant smile as Sarah nodded and let him go.

xxx 

Sarah missed being able to watch the sunrise, but she liked to lean against the large, kitchen window and feel the sun hit her in the face, warming her. That morning, however, she was waiting for something a little more obvious. Her best friend did not disappoint. She heard his shoes slapping on the gravel as he ran down to her driveway, and she knew he knew she was thinking of him. She allowed herself to smile and stuck her head out of the open window, even though all she saw was blackness. Gibson ran right up to her and gripped her hands over the low windowsill.

"Good morning!" he greeted. He sounded happy, and Sarah was about to open her mouth to ask when Skinner came up behind her and stuck his head out the window also.

"Well?" he pressed. "Sarah told me what you told her."

"I know," Gibson puffed. "Duh. Can I come in?"

"Yeah, of course," Skinner urged. Gibson disappeared from the window and Sarah turned as she heard the front door clatter. Skinner pulled the window shut behind her and they stood side by side as Gibson came to a stop just a metre in front of them, dressed in his usual jeans and dark shirt. "Well?" Skinner repeated. "How is she?"

"Still really sick," Gibson replied. "And Xilona's taken some blood and is gonna look at it today, but Mon's been ordered to bed rest and fluids and they're thinking about even putting her into the hospital until they're sure they're just dealing with a really, really bad case of morning sickness."

"She is pregnant?" Sarah exclaimed. Gibson nodded, aware Sarah could not see him but unable to help himself.

"That would be a very excited yes," Skinner commentated for his niece, laughing. "So uh, how'd they figure that out?"

"With a really intrusive-sounding physical exam, which I don't think you need to know the details of." Sarah giggled as Skinner blushed. "Nathan heard on the grapevine after everything was cancelled last night and came by this morning. They BOTH examined her. He said everyone is worried, and Xilona came back to do the blood test but they don't think it's anything bad, considering how sick we all know she was the first time. I really thought she'd pass out some days. They're mostly afraid that if she gets really weak she'll be vulnerable so...yeah, I knew I promised to come tell you and John said it was okay so here I am."

"Do they need help getting her to hospital?" Skinner asked.

"They're out of range now but when I left they hadn't decided. Monica's against it, wants to stay at home, but uh, if she is sick and John's not there a lot of the time then I think it's best. I told them we'd all help look after Nicky and he can stay with her a lot of the time too. I mean if she's just pregnant there's no reason he can't. But if they take her, Skinner, I think John and Nathan will stretcher her." Skinner nodded seriously, sighing and running a nervous hand over his bald head. "But um, no need for any panic yet. Monica was not impressed last night when John brought Xilona home, but everyone just wants to be really safe. So what happened last night? I got a bit from Nathan this morning but not much. His mind was more on doctor stuff."

"Well I never said anything specific but people had been watching you lot, as they do, and it didn't take long for somebody to put a few bits and pieces together, especially not once I started spouting off the new curfew rules which were not happily accepted by some but overall I think everyone felt a flutter of panic, and they think anything to reduce risk is a good idea. I got a little team together before we disbanded and we're going to meet this morning to go over water and sewerage issues. I assume John's preoccupied with personal matters?"

"Oh good," Gibson sighed. "John...I think he'd like to be involved. I was going to go back to the house and see if I can see Monica, because I haven't been allowed to yet! Maybe you could come, and then if they take her to hospital you all can go and Sarah and I can take Nicky and make sure he gets there safely too."

"You don't think they would have left already?"

"When I left Nathan still had his hand somewhere I don't want to say and Monica was trying not to hurl while he did his job, so I'm thinking no." Skinner laughed, walking past Gibson and patting him on the back.

"Give me five, I'll get changed."

"You ready?" Gibson asked Sarah hopefully. She nodded, smoothing her hands down her white, cotton skirt.

"Why? Is my top on inside out?"

"No," he laughed. "Just wanted to do this." He walked up to her and hugged her, standing on his tiptoes to meet her height as she ducked and wrapped her arms around his waist. "I am really sorry I worried you last night," he added as they pulled away, the hug brief but tight.

"It's okay," she assured him casually. "I want to know all that sort of stuff. It's pretty scary not being able to see. You probably know that better than anyone else because you know what goes on up here." She tapped her head and Gibson hummed, taking a subtle step back from her as Skinner returned in a fresh shirt to go with his jeans.

xxx 

"I brought you a present," Gibson announced from the doorway of the hospital room Monica had been assigned. It was a proper, though very small, hospital, and all the medications had been imported, so once they ran out then that was it. None of the equipment worked either, as no power stations were being run to create electricity, and the colony was not exactly filled with solar power engineers. At night they travelled with fire.

Monica was half sitting up against a mountain of pillows under the blankets in a clean, red shirt and she smirked at him.

"Is it my son?" she asked expectantly.

"No," Gibson replied, pushing a hand behind him to keep Sarah and Nicky out of sight. With his other hand he produced something he knew she would enjoy. "Look what I got out of a vending machine."

"Ooh," Monica gasped when she saw the red sports drink. "How did you manage that?"

"It had already been broken into," he teased. "Nobody wanted the Powerade." He walked into the room and gave it to her. "Now don't drink it all at once. I know you keep throwing up the water."

"I did that last time too," she reminded him, and he nodded calmly. "I seriously do not think I have a communicable disease, Gibson."

"I know that, but they are all very worried that 'someone' will get one, and there has to be a first, and you're John's wife. You get very, very special treatment."

"Yeah, well, if what I went through last night and then again this morning qualifies as the 'very, very' special treatment, I think I would settle for moderately okay treatment." Gibson chuckled, watching her take a wary sip of the sugar and enzyme loaded sports drink that had been her favourite flavour the last time she was pregnant. She only took a tiny sip and then replaced the cap and set it by the bed, not wanting to waste it.

"What have they got you on?" Gibson asked curiously, noting the intravenous line in the top of her left hand leading to a bag of saline. She fiddled with her engagement and wedding rings and sighed, resting back against the pillows.

"Just electrolytes and saline, the usual to 'rehydrate' me. I kept telling them not to waste a whole bag on me and save it for somebody who is really sick, but they wouldn't listen."

"You were pretty woozy you know," Gibson pointed out. "I was having trouble making sense of you last night. You sound a LOT better this morning. Your head is clearer."

"Yeah, well this drip 'might' be working," she conceded, rolling her brown eyes as he laughed. "So does Sarah have Nicky then? Are they okay?"

"They're fine," Gibson promised, turning back to the door. "You can come in now!" he called. Monica grinned when Sarah eased her way blindly around the doorframe with Nicky on her hip. Gibson walked up and touched her elbow, guiding her forward.

"Here's mommy!" Sarah exclaimed, allowing Gibson to take Nicky from her and guide her to a chair. Nicky threw himself at Monica for a long cuddle and she held him against her chest protectively, planting a kiss on his smooth forehead. "He was fine on the walk," Sarah explained. "A bit fussy. I think he knew everyone was worried and he missed you all last night, Gibson said he was crying for you, but we told him he'd be with you again soon."

"We brought a bag of his stuff too," Gibson added. "I left it at the nurse's station because I wasn't sure if you wanted him to stay with you while you're here, or what you and John had decided."

"We haven't decided anything yet," Monica replied. "But I haven't been away from this little boy a night since he was born. I missed him too. I don't know if I can leave him."

"If you stay well they'll probably let you go home," Sarah reasoned. "You sound okay. How do you feel?"

"Honestly I couldn't eat anything right now," Monica replied. "But that drink is going to really help Gibson, I know it. Thank you." He smiled, shrugging casually. "I don't know if Gibson told you Sarah, but I got really thin the first time from throwing up so much. You have never heard John, Mulder and Gibson really panic until you put them in a basement with a woman who can't keep any food down and spends all day getting up to go to their aptly named 'hurling corner'. It was not pretty."

"How pregnant are you?" she asked.

"I couldn't be more than six weeks," she guessed. "I think four. They're thinking eight, but I'm sceptical. I think I would have noticed by now if I was but I suppose there's a possibility I lost track of time. But I didn't stop throwing up until, what was it Gibson, month five?"

"Somewhere there," he agreed.

"They better not keep me here that whole time," she huffed. "Have you spoken to John?"

"No, but I know he'll agree to whatever's best for you whether you like it or not," Gibson taunted with a laugh as Monica scowled and returned her attention to the baby lying sprawled across her chest and stomach. Gibson knew Nicky had not slept much the night before, disturbed by all the visitors and not getting to see his mom. Nicky looked keen to make up for all the energy spent on tears, his breathing already deep and steady beneath Monica's palm.

Sarah explained to Monica the changes that were being made, and that John and Skinner had gone to a meeting to brainstorm other ideas to help prevent the spread of any diseases.

"I hope this isn't because of me," Monica mumbled, blushing. Sarah shook her head.

"No, it was really weird. Xilona was talking to us about it before John came, and then Gibson heard and realised and got really worried, and I think because Xilona and Nathan are such young doctors, and Xilona is the only one with experience with these sorts of diseases, that uh, they're just afraid of screwing up. I bet Scully when she was twenty-something got nervous like that all the time too."

"Scully when she was forty got nervous all the time like that," Monica assured her. "I trust Xilona and Nathan, so I'm not worried. They've taken very good care of me and I do feel better, but I really do not think I have yellow fever or typhoid or anything like that. As John very cleverly pointed out yesterday when he asked me if I was pregnant, I don't have stomach cramps or any pain except from constantly throwing up. I promise Sarah, I'm fine."

"Yeah, I know now that I've spoken to you," she whispered, stretching her hand out blindly across the mattress. Monica found her hand easily and squeezed. "I'm really happy for you Monica," she continued. "And I really hope nothing bad happens like it did last time you were pregnant."

"You mean you hope I'm not cursed or that it's not a 'sign'?" Monica asked with a laugh. "Mm, me too. Walking through a desert is one thing. I'm not walking through the Amazon."

"Are you excited?" Sarah asked hopefully.

"Uh, a little bit. I didn't even realise until John suggested it... I suppose those months of me throwing up traumatised him more than me. His mind went straight there. Then suddenly I have doctors prodding me and asking me all the questions and telling me John was right and uh, then I'm on a stretcher being walked up through the town past 'everybody', and nobody put a paper bag over my head. Very embarrassing. But I suppose I am a little bit excited. It uh, wasn't planned. Not like Nicky was. It's still sinking in."

"I used to want children," Sarah sighed, letting go of Monica's hand and sitting back in her chair. "I guess I'm expected to here but I don't think anybody 'really' expects me to. I'd be a horrible mother."

"You would not," Gibson scoffed.

"I can't SEE," she insisted. "It's one thing if I can put the baby in a cot and then remember that was where I left it, but when they're walking and augh, I just wouldn't know. He or she could be throwing knives and I wouldn't know." Monica chuckled, running her fingers gently through Nicky's soft, curly hair underneath her chin, very grateful for her sight.

"Well you've always been very good with this baby," she assured her. "If you find a daddy happy to take the lead sometimes then I think you'd be okay." Sarah sighed deeply, nodding.

"I uh, I'm gonna go for a walk," Gibson mumbled, turning and heading straight out the door. Monica did not miss the way he looked longingly at Sarah or the blush on his cheeks, but Sarah, unfortunately, missed it all.

"Hey," she whispered to the younger woman, causing Sarah to lift her head and lean forward slightly. "Do you uh, do you like Gibson?"

"Sure I like him," she replied, shrugging. "He's been great. He's always there when I need him."

"Does it bother you he can read your mind?"

"Sometimes," she admitted. "I'm pretty used to it now though. I mean, I know what was going on in the house in Virginia some nights with Mulder and Scully and you and John. And if that didn't really bother you, and if him being inside your head while you had a baby didn't really bother you, then it's not like I have anything to complain about. I'm sure he's heard 'everything' before, as he keeps telling me. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I mean I shouldn't say anything, but-"

"Did he make a face before when I was talking about kids?" she asked. Monica did not answer audibly and Sarah interpreted the silence in the affirmative. "I know he sort of likes me," she admitted. "I've had boyfriends before. I know how they act. He's never had a girlfriend, has he?"

"I don't know," Monica answered honestly. "Has he kissed you yet?" Sarah shook her head. "Do you want him to?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "He's my friend and he's...not like anyone I ever dated in high school or college. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it's just, I don't know...I don't have many friends, and if we messed it up somehow...plus there's Walter. I think it's just too uncomfortable a situation. Has he even kissed anyone before?"

"I don't know," Monica sighed. "But he's had a very tough life, and I doubt it. On the upside, I'm sure academically he knows a LOT. He lived with Mulder for a year. Mulder's no prude and I'm sure his missing Scully turned into fantasy-land more than once. Surely some thoughts are just too strong to ignore." Sarah giggled, remembering her friends.

"I wonder if they still have 'quiet time'," she teased. Monica laughed. "So uh, you think I should talk to Gibson?"

"Just remember that he can hear you. I doubt he got far enough away before we started this conversation to miss even this. I'm sure he's polite enough to try to block it all out for the sake of privacy, because he certainly afforded that to the rest of us in our private moments. But he does know what's in your mind, Sarah, and maybe they are things that should be said aloud, just so they're not misinterpreted."

"Okay," Sarah whispered seriously. "Thanks Monica, I...I can't talk to Walter about this so-"

"That's what I'm here for," Monica assured her. She reached for Sarah's hand and brought it to Nicky's back. "Just help me hold him there for a sec. I want another sip of that drink."


	4. Chapter 4

Four

Scully smiled at the doorway which led to the basketball court that had been created in Mulder's 'open space'. It was an alteration in the laws of physics she did not understand and had given up trying to. Underneath the room was large but empty, except when Mulder walked in it turned into whatever he wanted, generally some sort of sports arena or field, although she had caught him more than once sitting in what had been their grassy backyard in Virginia. The first time she had gone to sit next to him and cried, only to discover that he had been crying too.

They were still lonely.

Even with the basketball game in full swing in front of her, with six people on each side, Mulder was sitting on the bleachers instead of playing. He was refereeing, probably because he had again been surprised by how many people had come and they had needed somebody to volunteer to sit out, but it still made her feel sad for them to see him sitting on his own smiling at a game he was not participating in. And when he sensed her watching him and then walked towards her, the game did not stop; nobody even noticed.

"Hi stranger," she whispered, watching his smile widen exponentially when he got closer. She slid her hands up his chest and hugged him tightly. She knew he was surprised, but she couldn't help herself. She needed to hold him in those brief moments of loneliness that flitted around their healthy, productive lives. Mulder hugged her just as securely, tucking her head under his chin and stroking her hair that had grown past her waist.

"Got another full house to group therapy," he mumbled, chuckling when she laughed and pulled her head back.

"I can see that," she teased, her blue eyes glistening. "Eddie and I have something to show you, but it can wait if you have serious psychological issues to deal with here." Mulder glanced thoughtfully back at the vibrant basketball game between several of the agricultural scientists, all men, all Asian or European. One of the taller Russians stole the ball and took a three-pointer and his half of the group cheered. Mulder turned quickly back to Scully.

"I don't think they'll miss me," he declared. Scully grinned, ignoring the stab of truth at his words, and clutched at his hand to lead him out. As soon as he left the room the basketball court disappeared.

"He-ey!" Mulder stuck his head back around the corner.

"Sorry guys, important medical business with the little lady. Same time tomorrow!" They laughed and rolled their eyes at him, just as Mulder had hoped with his careful yet coy choice of words. Somebody mentioned getting out a deck of cards, and Mulder was happy. Everyone was socialising a lot better in recent weeks, times, whatever, and that was technically his job there as a psychologist; to help them live with each other. Well he was doing his best, and it seemed to be paying off. He was getting to know them all a lot better, and he was pretty sure all the men who had turned out for basketball that day had been human.

Yep, he thought. Pretty sure.

Scully led Mulder silently up the stairs and he let her, letting go of her hand and resting his palm against her lower back just as he had done so many times when they had worked together at the FBI. He was slightly nervous about the way she had hugged him in the room, and he wished for a moment he could read her mind. Perhaps she had missed him, he reasoned. He had not seen her since she woke him up that 'morning' and told him she had to get an early start at the labs. She had been dressed and out of their quarters before Mulder had even cleared the sleep from his eyes.

"How come you weren't playing today?" she asked as they ascended the steeply curved stairs that ran around the inside hallway of Tower One, one of three cylindrical structures below the ice, connected by sloping ramps. Tower One was mostly administrative, and included all the medical quarters. It was where Mulder and Scully spent most of their days. Tower Two was residential and their private quarters were on the top floor. Tower Three was preservationist, and every floor was stacked with nurseries and plantations and indoor farms for everything from grain to fish.

All the rooms in every Tower were wrapped in a circular shape and the hollow centres provided access to escalators and elevators. If Mulder and Scully were feeling lazy or if they had eaten too much at dinner at the base of Tower Two, it did not take a lot of effort to get to where they were going, but they both enjoyed the stairs and the exercise. And Scully was a doctor; he had learned when not to complain.

"Odd numbers," he answered casually. "I can play in there any time I like but they gotta wait for me to turn up so it's only fair. They were saying they all just got up for their day." Scully nodded. She was aware she and Mulder kept a different timetable to almost everyone else, but it felt right for them, and they were usually casual about the time they kept. If they had a particularly long day at the labs then they would go to bed as though they hadn't, perhaps sleep in, and then get up and start whenever they were ready.

It had taken them both a very long time to get used to the lack of 'time' in Antarctica, but Mulder thought they were doing quite well. Adjusting to other things had been more difficult, like the fact they were the only Americans, and the fact their best friends were a pair of aliens hiding in African American bodies, and the reality that they were searching for two very important things: a cure for an alien plague to save those friends' species, and a remedy to kill the supersoldiers to save their own.

"He's here," Scully announced as they got to the floor to enter the restricted area. Mulder saw Eddie and Michael waiting outside and gaped.

"Did you make them wait out here?" he asked.

"It's 'restricted'," she repeated. "I was told upon arrival that only I can go in and I can only bring others in while they're with me. I kicked them out to come and find you."

"May I point out that I was the one who told you that?" Michael huffed, clearly not impressed. Scully only smirked. Michael looked like a tall, skinny, bald black man in his late twenties. He had a smug sort of smile and he was friendly enough, but Mulder still had not warmed to him after finding him bent over an unconscious Scully with his mouth on her breast. His excuse? Well, he was just a curious little alien who didn't have women in his own world. Yeah, SURE.

It was true, Michael was the equivalent of an adolescent, but Mulder always felt more protective about Scully when Michael was with them. He knew he was being stupid and that Michael had been a good student of Scully's since the two of them had sat down for some serious talks, and he seemed to respect her, but that was what Mulder had thought 'before'. Mulder would never, ever forget that day, and he had told Michael in no uncertain terms that if he ever laid a hand on Scully again Mulder would kill him, alien or not. He knew how.

Eddie, standing calmly beside Michael, was a much better friend. He was nearly as tall as Michael with a thick afro and a happy face. He was physically extremely strong. He was also a scientist in his own world who had been fascinated by earth and its people, and he was desperate to find a cure for the plague which had prevented them reproducing effectively for several of their years. They had already foregone hopes of colonisation and stripped the Northern Hemisphere of its resources searching for a cure that could supposedly be found on the earth, but they had yielded no promising results.

A part of Mulder wasn't sure if he really wanted to find a way to eradicate the supersoldiers. He was worried that if they did that, Eddie's promise not to destroy the south in continued search for their own cure might not mean as much.

But they both seemed genuine and Mulder had to trust them. Or at least try. He trusted Scully, and Scully trusted them, so that was good enough for him.

Scully held her palm against the unseen pad on the door below the directional light and waited as her palm was read, her blood tested, her eyes scanned and her voice analysed. Then the door opened. Mulder blew out a playful sigh of relief and she reached back to swat him, laughing. She was used to the routine, and it did not take 'that' long.

"We have something to show you," she assured him. "I think you'll be very happy."

"Came through on the network an hour ago," Eddie added. "Straight to Michael."

"Michael?" Mulder asked, surprised. Michael nodded. He was, after all, the 'leader' of the Complex, not that anybody would know it considering he masqueraded as a cleaner. His caretaker, the alien man who provided a father role, was important and had put his favourite 'son' in charge of their species' last hope. Mulder knew Michael was not as bright or knowledgeable about earth and its resources and people as Eddie. Mulder wasn't sure that caretaker's decision had been the smartest.

"As soon as they started telling me and I realised I stopped them," Scully explained, leading him to the large, cluttered but ordered workbench they had spent most of their time at, researching using the computer network's available systems and their own less technologically advanced methods like published books and the old fashioned microscope. Mulder smiled as he glanced at it. He loved watching Scully bent over that microscope.

"Wipe the grin, buddy," Eddie teased, catching him in his moment and causing Scully to glance at him suspiciously as his expression became unreadable almost immediately.

"Go on," he urged her. He watched her perch on her stool and tap around on the tall, wide screen in front of her until she found what she was looking for. Mulder peered at the image in front of him. It was a moving picture, he realised. Like on an old, stationery security camera. "What am I looking at?"

"That's the coastline," Scully identified, running her hand along the screen to divide it in two. "And just moving over-" She brushed her hand to the right and the screen jolted, panning across for her. "We've got some sand dunes, and 'here' is what we found." Mulder examined the space her finger had tapped. It looked like a whirlpool had sucked the sand down into a sudden hole in the ground.

"Your lot sent this through?" Mulder asked, glancing at Michael and Eddie. Michael nodded.

"With a message," he added. "As you know, we have someone working on the inside of the supersoldier project who knew about this. It happened a while ago so we think he's been caught up in the panic and didn't get a chance to tell us the coordinates. He was never sure when it was going to be; she never told him she found it until it was done, for security."

"She? And where is this? What 'is' this?" Mulder asked.

"This is the coast of Namibia and Angola in west Africa. That is what is left of a residency of humans working on the supersoldier program in research and development. We estimate up to fifty humans were killed along with the lab and their data, but we can't be sure of the exact numbers as some may have been supersoldiers. 'She' is a woman the supersoldiers know as Eve. The message we got accompanying this is that 'Eve's started'. As soon as I mentioned the name Dana insisted on coming to get you."

"Eve," Mulder repeated slowly, thinking back to conversations with a tall, strong brunette who lugged a car-sized carton of resources across the desert so they didn't go hungry. She had been one of the two first, Adam and Eve. "That wouldn't be Shannon McMahon?"

"I think it is," Scully agreed, grinning. "Eddie, tell him what you told me."

"Eve is a supersoldier, we know that," he explained. "Our 'person' on the inside of the program discovered her and formed an alliance with her at the first signs of her differences with the rest of the supersoldiers. He's kept us informed of her actions, and Eve and our accomplice are the reasons why you have come here. She went to him in Mexico and upon finding out you would be rejected from the other processing centres he arranged for you to come here. He realised you may be of some benefit to us. Your knowledge, that is."

"So when she went there, he knew who we were?" Mulder asked.

"If he didn't at first, once he spoke to me he did," Eddie answered. "Your names were spread around a bit a while ago. Those of us who know of the original plans for colonisation with men your fathers' age know of you and your efforts to bring truth to your people. You knew everything you could have discovered as part of your world, in your positions. But that's off track. Eve is a supersoldier whose differences from the project allow her to retain her pre-existing moral code and to access her free will and feelings. She is working against them."

"That'd be Shannon," Mulder replied with a wide grin. "What'd she do, blow it up?"

"Yes," Michael chuckled. "She took seven earth days to do it too, made it look TOO easy."

"She accessed the supersoldier residency seven nights in a row," Scully elaborated for Mulder. "We think she was periodically placing explosives but she might have done it all on the first night and then just toyed around a bit. But it is Shannon. You know her sense of humour. What you're seeing on the screen here is real time so she's nowhere to be found. Hopefully...considering what we know of her...she rebuilt herself and escaped."

"Would she have had to climb up through the sand?" Mulder asked.

"Well...If her lungs are waterproof they may as well be sand-proof too," Scully reasoned.

"How do you know about how long it took and what she accessed?"

"The full message was 'Eve's started. Achieved positive access over one week, and on the seventh day she rested. Adam is dying." Michael recited from memory. Mulder smirked at the Biblical references and risked a brief glance at the golden crucifix sitting between Scully's collarbones amidst the dark blue of her polo shirt.

"Did you want to try to contact him?" Eddie asked, leaning against the desk beside Mulder.

"There's a phone here we don't know about?" Mulder taunted playfully. "By all means." Eddie rolled his eyes and shook his head with mock shame.

"No man, we'll be takin' a walk for this. But I want to see if he's home. Dana, if you would please step aside?"

"Of course," Scully agreed, sliding off the tall chair and moving to stand beside Mulder, her arms folded seriously. They both watched Eddie rattle the keys or the keyboard on the desk with an unnatural dexterity to his long, brown fingers. His large hands obscured almost all the keys, and Scully again marvelled at his fluency in English and his command of the alphabet. Though their language was so much more primitive than Eddie's, it could not be that hard for them to learn. They could read each other's minds, after all.

However, Scully supposed it was like anything else in life; the ones who really excelled were those who 'wanted' to learn, and Eddie certainly wanted. After spending more time with them, Scully had realised Eddie's grasp of all forms of human communication, verbal and non-verbal, far surpassed Michael's. The passion was not shared by the young commander, but Scully was heartened by the presence of passion for her world in at least one person who did not owe her or any other human his time or concern. Eddie's passion for the human world stirred her, and made her more passionate. It kept her optimistic.

"What are you doing?" Mulder asked, tilting his head to the side as he watched some sort of network window pop up. There was no text on it; it was a black square amidst the much larger screen. Eddie did not reply. He shut his eyes and pressed his finger onto the screen. Mulder saw his lips move and he heard Scully's gasp above the quiet whispers audible in a foreign tongue. With them, Eddie and Michael had spoken nothing but English in either their American accents or something more polished, possessing a subtle British clip from their English 'lessons'. It was the first time Eddie had ever spoken in tongues, and he seemed to be speaking into a little black box.

Mulder would have thought it was a scene from a very bad movie if he was not standing a metre from the man. In fact, he would have enjoyed watching such a movie cuddled up with his partner on his couch in his old apartment. Number 42. How he missed that couch.

Eddie pulled away as suddenly as he had connected and turned to them with a wide smile.

"She's there," he told them, excited. "We've got an appointment. Clear everyone out of your open room Mulder. The four of us are heading there now."

"Any requests?"

"It's taken care of," Eddie promised with a smirk, ushering them out of the research office, but not before a stubborn Scully ran her usual checks on all her equipment and the locks on the doors which led to integral storage facilities and her other offices. Mulder hid his smirk when he saw the indignation on Michael's face. Eddie followed her with his eyes. He looked to be quietly marvelling at the human compulsion to always double check.

"If you think that's bad, you should have seen her 'all' the times she thought she'd left her FBI wallet in random hotels around the country," Mulder mumbled. It was heard by all, and Scully laughed, completing her checks and sealing the final door with her genetic imprint as they huddled in the hallway.

"And where was it 'all' the time, Mulder?" she asked, her voice ultra-sweet and teasing. Eddie led the way back down the stairs, Michael at the rear.

"Oh it was in my pocket," Mulder assured them all proudly. Eddie laughed loudly and freely, and Michael twittered in Mulder's ear. He suppressed a shiver at the sound and was thankful he was between Michael and Scully.

When they entered Mulder's empty room, Scully grinned widely. It was his old apartment. Her heart fluttered with nostalgia as she took her time walking around, running her hand over the top of the television. She laughed at the stack of pornographic videos on the floor beside the VCR and her smile softened as she glanced at the fish tank in the corner, beside the desk and the window she had stared out of many times. She had taped masking tape across it once, desperate, and she had stood where she was standing so many times it was like coming home. It was almost too cruel to realise it was merely an illusion.

Mulder collapsed instantly across the couch and sighed, happy.

"Care to make some room there?" Scully asked, kneeing his hip impatiently.

"Could you have picked a more cramped place?" Michael asked, looking around. "This isn't seriously where you used to live. It's a third of the size of this space's capacity."

"Well it had other rooms," Mulder shot back.

"He only wanted this one," Eddie replied. Mulder narrowed his eyes at him slyly.

"You do this, don't you," he stated. "You can read my mind." Eddie shrugged, expressionless. He had refused to answer that one question that kept coming up. But Mulder knew that he himself was not psychic, and he had no kinetic powers. His most powerful attribute was his photographic memory, and though it was obviously good considering these places he visited in the room were exact replications, he had no ability to transform those memories into reality. Eddie and Michael had masqueraded as the humans who had guided them around the complex upon their arrival; they had introduced him to the room. It had to be them. It had to be Eddie.

"Why?" Mulder asked.

"We knew this room would be safe under your protection," Eddie replied. "It's a window."

"You're not saying we're 'really' here, are you?" Scully asked.

"No, if that were true you could never sit on a baseball field under the stars or in your old backyard. Those places no longer exist. But in another time and place, they do." Scully nodded, feeling tears of confusion sting her eyes, for she still did not understand. It was beyond her physics, beyond the boundaries of her imagination, and for all the comfort the room brought her, it always made her sad. She looked towards the fish tank so nobody saw her trembling lower lip as she fought to control herself.

"So what are we waiting for?" Mulder asked. The atmosphere had almost shivered as Scully's mood took a dive, but he knew touching her or drawing attention to her would force her to shut her emotions down or let them free, and he wasn't sure they had the time for either. "How do they know to come to this room, and not, say, head to the baseball field?"

"We can find each other," Michael answered smartly. Mulder simply nodded, sitting back against his couch and inhaling. It smelt like his couch. The filter of the fish tank bubbled softly. Scully's breathing was steady beside his. In the last few months before his abduction, as they had grown steadily closer and dealt with the newest aspect of their relationship, they had fallen asleep on his couch many times. Scully had sometimes woken him; he had often asked her to stay. Twice Scully falling asleep in his arms on the couch was consent enough, and he had carried her to his bed and tucked her in. Everything had changed so quickly after then. It had never been the same.

"Can we change this?" Mulder asked, staring directly at Eddie as his heart began to beat quickly in his chest, his memories coming too quickly and accurately for him to control.

Scully. William. Leaving. His apartment.

Scully on the floor in the light. His hand over where her heart still was. Sobbing.

Him kneeling in the hallway in the dark. She's dying. Go to her.

Scully waking him as he slept on the couch. 'I just want to hear you beside me. Don't go.'

Scully rocking him as he cried restlessly after his mother's death.

'I won't go, Mulder.'

Scully hushing him to sleep in his bed as he wept for his mom. Scully saying she loved him.

'I love you too Dana.'

'You've seen this movie forty-two times? Doesn't that make you sad, Mulder? It makes me sad.'

'Merry Christmas Mulder.'

"Think of somewhere different then," Eddie urged him as Mulder rested his painfully dazed head in his large hands.

Scully had kept her eyes closed as she battled to control her tears, but when Michael whistled appreciatively she opened her eyes and gasped. She and Mulder were no longer sitting on his couch. They were sitting on the large, cold marble and limestone steps of the Lincoln memorial. It was day time. The sky was a bright blue, there were no clouds, and the water feature that stretched out in front of them rippled in a gentle, cool breeze, reflecting the sun.

Scully stood and turned around, staring past the pillars either side of her and up into the face of the familiar statue. She could swear she felt a chilled draught as the breeze swept in and around the columns.

"In this Temple, as in the hearts of the people, for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever," she whispered, reading what she could make out from such a distance and reciting partly from memory. Mulder opened his eyes and turned around to stare up at her, balancing with a palm against the cool stone. "Very nice, Mulder," she assured him, her voice shaking. "I don't think after this anyone will remember Abraham Lincoln."

"I don't know Scully," Mulder replied, standing up and observing the monument for himself. He could walk forward and touch it if he wanted, but he didn't dare. "The end of the civil war, the end of slavery; that's what this stands for. History repeats itself, does it not?"

"In its own ways," she agreed softly, reaching for his hand and squeezing his fingers firmly. "Are you okay?" she asked. She had heard him request another space. He had never done that before. Mulder nodded silently, and it told her that he most certainly was not okay. "I love you Mulder," she whispered. She was not sure whether Eddie or Michael was close enough to hear her, but they already knew anyway, even if they could never truly understand.

Scully had realised that in all his rooms Mulder kept bringing her home with him. The baseball field where he had taught her to swing, the basketball court she had found him practising in one day, the basketball arena in New York where they had gone to a Knicks game together, their backyard, their bedroom, his apartment; all bringing her home. He was clicking his heels and wishing for their return to Kansas. It was heartbreaking and inspiring, because it told her that for all he had achieved, for all they had learned, they were hopelessly lost, and all Mulder craved was a simple life he could never get back.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?" she whispered, rubbing her thumb over the top of his hand. "The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? Though a host encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war rise against me, yet I will be confident. For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high upon a rock. I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage."

Mulder shut his eyes as she hissed portions of the Psalm he had memorised on their bed in the underground safety bunker of their Virginian home. She had left it for him to find if he should ever return there after the invasion, and he had found it. He was not a religious man, he had not been raised Catholic as she had, but he knew her faith and he understood her beliefs, and when necessary he never hesitated to call upon that strength. He had clung to those beliefs then, the confidence in the scripture's words, the truths of which they spoke. When he had seen her again, a vision outside his house upon his return searching for her in DC, he had been speechless, and with those same words she had coaxed his voice from him.

"Getting all mushy, are we?" Shannon taunted from behind them suddenly. Mulder snatched his hand away from Scully in surprise as they both gasped and spun on their heels. She was standing a few steps down from them with her hands on her hips, dressed in jeans and a simple, black t-shirt. She had dirty runners on her feet and her dark hair was pulled back on a low ponytail. Beside her stood a young, skinny man with messy brown hair, brown eyes and glasses. He was also wearing jeans and a loose, flannel shirt. His hands were stuffed awkwardly in his pocket, and Mulder and Scully knew that he was the alien contact.

He did not 'look' like an alien though. Mulder was used to Eddie and Michael, both strong and tall and loud. The man before them looked thin and more timid. Perhaps he was a less confident alien, or perhaps the body he had assumed was the easiest with which he could blend into his environment. Unseen.

"Shannon," Scully gushed, jogging down the few steps quickly and reaching up to embrace a woman she counted as a friend. She was happy when Shannon did not hesitate to hug her back, and Shannon did not flinch when Scully began sobbing into her shoulder. Mulder's heart felt like it shrank as he watched his partner crumble in the arms of a woman who was more than a woman, but less than a robot. One of the tears which had been in his eyes trickled onto his cheek as he watched the way Shannon held Scully, with strength but with tenderness and what appeared to be real affection.

It took a few extra seconds before Mulder realised Shannon was crying too. Scully noticed just a second after he did, and she pulled back with shock as Shannon hurriedly brushed at her tears, attempting to compose herself.

"Oh my God," Scully whispered, reaching up with the curious hands of a doctor to brush her thumbs gently over Shannon's cheeks. "What's this?" she asked, concerned but hopeful as she stared into Shannon's clear, blue eyes. They were wet and bloodshot, and Shannon grinned at her.

"It's a long story," she admitted. "I'm so glad you're both okay." She looked past Scully and up at Mulder then, offering him a casual wave which he returned as he approached. They embraced briefly, Mulder still staring at her with amazement. "Look," Shannon added, holding her arm out for them to peer down at. Scully ran her fingers over the scars on Shannon's forearm that she did not remember ever seeing before. Shannon should not have had any new scars. "I'm still strong," she assured them. "But I don't let myself acknowledge you all most of the time. After I left you on the island I went back to them, and uh, accidentally felt too much on the surface, and a little bit more me got through."

"Oh Shannon," Scully whispered with wide, blue eyes. "It's dangerous for you to keep doing what you're doing."

"I have to," Shannon replied seriously. "I'm fine as long as I shove it all underneath when I need to be strong. I spent ages testing it. It works."

"For now," Mulder mentioned warily. Shannon nodded. Her expression told him she fully comprehended the implications. He could not argue with her.

"How are the others?" Scully pressed without waiting for another second of silence to pass. "What happened to them?"

"I didn't stay long after I went back but I helped them as far as I dared. They were all healthy, just tired and missing you. I know now they've been processed. They all made it through."

"Thank God," Scully sighed with relief. "Where?"

"Central South America," Shannon replied. "Ted's got information of all human survivors processed and where they are. The program knows where the high concentration of magnetite is and they know that's where the human colonies have been set up."

"But who runs these processing centres?" Mulder asked. "If the supersoldiers wanted to destroy humans-"

"It's part of the Convention," Ted explained from just behind Shannon, stepping forward and stretching out a pale, white hand. "You can call me Ted. Nice to meet you." Mulder shook his hand first, then Scully.

"This is Fox Mulder and Dana Scully," Shannon spoke as they exchanged greetings. Ted nodded.

"I heard a lot about you," he assured them with the faintest smile. "The processing centres, at least the 'real' ones, are run by humans but controlled by supersoldiers, and only a small number of people have been allowed to survive. The goal under the Convention is to not destroy the local culture, but you know those provisions have rarely been successful in your world anyway. Words are pretty meaningless, huh? Most humans in the south have died."

"The same virus in the north?" Scully asked.

"No," he replied. "Just killed. Shot, massacred by the supersoldiers, but your friends got through as refugees." Scully must have stared at him with wide, surprised eyes, for his smile widened. "I've studied your world's history and technologies," he explained. "That's why I was picked to be inside on the supersoldier program. Everyone there thinks I'm human."

"Ted fits in real well," Eddie agreed with a wide smile. "He's what you'd call my protégé. Shannon, we've just been observing your work in Africa. Well done girl."

"Thanks," she replied steadily. "Though it took a bit of burrowing to get out. Didn't want to stick my head above the sand to come face to face with the supersoldier who blew up a metre from me at the same time I did. A pretty impressive hole, if I do say so myself. All the senior researchers lived there. It was night. They were all asleep when it happened. You got the extra magnetite?"

"How do you know about that?" Mulder asked.

"I was on land at Cape Verde when I saw them," she replied with a calm shrug. "Prime position."

"I'd mapped where all the deposits were along the east coast," Mulder explained. "When I realised they'd missed some I sent them back. We cleaned up New Mexico and Mexico too, Utah, bits and pieces. As much as we could. It's being processed now."

"Into what?" Shannon asked.

"Some shrapnel," Scully explained. "I've been experimenting with a liquid of some kind. Right now it's a bit like a high school science fair, either really successful or a horrible disaster. We've been trying to split our time between this and the other problem."

"The plague," Shannon stated. Scully nodded, turning to stare out at the water that stretched out beyond the monument. She suddenly had an urge to dive in and go for a swim, but tried to focus on the conversation in front of her. It was more real than the water, anyway. "What's your engineering capacity here?" Shannon asked.

"As I know it, we can do anything you can imagine," Scully answered. "Though I'm still learning the technology and Eddie has been the chief scientist in regards to his world's sciences. He's been a wonderful teacher but I can't compare. Why? What do you need?"

"The supersoldiers are preparing to retaliate," Shannon explained. "They know I was responsible for Africa because I didn't hide it, but at the moment they're confused whether I'm working alone or with others. The supersoldiers have no way to distribute a bio-weapon against any of the colonies, but we're worried about possible nuclear deployment, which could be detonated a safe distance from the magnetite with radiation spreading south with the winds and...I'm about to leave for a bit of a tour to start trying to locate reactors. Luckily there's not so many south of the Equator, and the aliens have taken care of all in the north."

"Is that true?" Scully asked urgently, turning to stare at Eddie. She had not even considered nuclear weapons as a possibility. It would kill even them. Antarctica would no longer be safe.

"It's true. We wanted the resources undamaged and those of us who knew your weapons history insisted upon it. If there is a cure in the south, we cannot risk contamination. I'm assuring you now all weapons have been deactivated. We knew where they were."

"Thank you," Scully whispered seriously, tears stinging her eyes once more as she turned back to Shannon.

"I'm just going to double check the south, blow up a few labs along the way. If we take away the buildings in which they create their science, they'll end up no better off than the humans in the colonies. Speaking of, what I was really getting at before was what your stocks are like of human medicines here?"

"As you suggested before we came here, there's plenty," Scully promised. "Of everything. Things I don't know what to do with."

"Can you make more?" Shannon asked.

"Uh...yes," she answered. "I've only tried it myself a few times to produce basic painkillers for the residents here but uh, yes. Why?"

"As soon as we have the supersoldiers under control, we need to get more medicine to a lot of the colonies. Most are less than a thousand in number and the risk of communicable disease is high. Australia's very isolated and water and shelter are the biggest problems in the north-west, New Zealand is doing okay last I heard, but South Africa and Central America I'm not so sure about. Not much information has come to us about them at all. I assume it's very rough and I'm worried about the others. They were emotionally weak when I left them."

Scully sighed, running her hands through her loose, waist-length hair. Emotionally weak was worse than physical weakness. She understood that as well as anyone. Some days just were not worth getting out of bed for, no matter how fit a person was.

"What do you need?" she asked.

"I don't know," Shannon answered. "That's your department. Malaria, HIV, etcetera. You're the doctor."

"I can have stock ready," she promised. "I don't know how long it will take but I think I can get enough Quinine Sulphate and penicillin and antibiotics together without too much trouble. What about fluid?"

"Fluid?" Shannon asked. Scully nodded.

"Electrolyte replacement for where the patient is at risk of dehydration. What about vaccines?"

"Yes," Shannon decided quickly. "I mean if you can." Scully nodded. She could. "What about sterility?"

"The sharps are limited. They'll have to reuse them. I'm assuming everyone processed has been tested for things like HIV and Hepatitis?"

"Yes just like you were, but in some of these areas locals will have survived. Testing might not have been completed on them."

"I'll get it ready," Scully promised. "Everything I can. And I'll keep working on the magnetite we have here for development. How do you want to do it?"

"We're going to need to be flexible," Shannon explained. "We need to get it to them en mass and individually, and I still think the best way to deliver it will be via craft. Find a way to shoot it out of those alien spaceships I know you have stashed here and you'll be heroes."

"I don't want to be a hero," Scully sighed. "I just want to make sure whatever we do won't hurt my friends."

"Shannon we need to go," Ted announced. He had been silent almost the entire time, but Scully suspected he had been having a telepathic conversation with Eddie and Michael, both of whom had said almost nothing since Ted and Shannon had arrived.

"Okay," Shannon assured him, turning back to Scully and Mulder with serious, blue eyes. "Be careful," she urged them. "And hopefully I'll see you again. I'm sure you're doing incredible work here, and you're in all our thoughts. Are you the only woman here?" Scully nodded, surprised.

"How'd you know?"

"I know about their Plague, what they were trying to find. I suspected as much but I knew you'd be safe, or at least I hoped you would. You are, right?" Scully nodded seriously.

"Couldn't do it without her, Shannon," Eddie promised from behind them. "Or you."

"Thanks," Shannon repeated with a smile, reaching out to embrace Scully before leaving.

"Take care," Scully urged. "And no crying!"

"Yes ma'am," Shannon laughed, pulling away and again briefly hugging Mulder also. "It was good seeing you, and nice venue! I haven't been here in years!" Scully laughed, but her voice died in her throat as soon as Shannon and Ted vanished right in front of them. There was no fading in or out; they were just gone. Scully shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. She may as well have been talking with a ghost. In hindsight Shannon's touch seemed ephemeral, and Scully missed her instantly.

"Did you get everything you needed?" Mulder asked Eddie and Michael. They both nodded.

"It's nearly your bed time," Eddie advised them, more attuned to their habits than even they were. "We'll see you upstairs in the morning okay?"

"But what about-" Michael's protest was cut off by Eddie slapping a hand over Michael's mouth and holding it there.

"Give them some time alone," he seethed through grit teeth, loud enough for Mulder to hear. Mulder knew they did not have to communicate with speech, and Michael probably preferred not to considering how rarely he spoke, but Eddie insisted upon it, even when he was simply talking to his colleague. Mulder and Scully were both grateful for that, and Mulder was even more grateful when Eddie dragged Michael from the room. They disappeared behind one of the pillars, and Mulder and Scully were alone.

"I've never felt so guilty for being here," Scully mumbled, her arms still wrapped protectively around herself as she stared at the water. "HIV Mulder, malaria, nuclear weapons, and we're standing at the Lincoln memorial in a room that exists almost purely for our own selfish benefits."

"We have the ability here to help those colonies and make sure they survive as best they can," Mulder reminded her gently.

"I know," she whispered, sobbing as she sat down on one of the steps. Mulder sat beside her but away from her, giving her the space he knew she often craved. "I'm sorry," she wept. "I just, to see Shannon crying, and the way she was hugging me I, it threw me. I miss them."

"I can't believe I just saw a supersoldier cry," Mulder admitted with a chuckle. "She must have really missed you!"

"We did spend a lot of time together after they found me," she admitted. "Mulder why didn't you want us to meet in your apartment?"

"Too many memories," he mumbled, staring at his hands as they scraped along the rough texture of the steps. It felt so real. "Too many sleepless nights, too many tears. There is too much of us there, Scully. I don't want to let anyone else in there."

"Next time can we come in here and fall asleep on your old couch?" she asked, whispering. Mulder looked at her and saw her cheeks flush with embarrassment. He nodded definitely.

"I would like that," he agreed, his own cheeks and ears burning at the thought. The memory.

"I don't know how to be a doctor from afar," she admitted. "I can get medication together to distribute but how can I know whether it's enough? How do I know...how can I predict...what will happen in those places? They're going to have to reuse all the equipment. You just need one infected person. To have the power to prevent and treat diseases which throughout history has killed millions of people...I don't know if I can do that, Fox. God couldn't."

"Maybe He didn't so that we know now, so that now we are prepared. I know it sounds like a mammoth task and we're already overworked, but Shannon is counting on you Scully, on us, to make it happen. We've got the technology at our fingertips here to really make a difference. It's what we always wanted. I..."

"What?" she asked gently when he drifted off for a long period. He narrowed his eyes at her to guard against his emotions, but his voice shook as he spoke, and she reached for his knee, cupping it firmly in a silent show of support as he spoke.

"We won't have any other legacy in our lives but this, Dana."

She nodded, feeling grief constrict her lungs. He was right, but the truth hurt.

It hurt both of them.


	5. Chapter 5

Five

"Why me?" Mulder hissed as he sat in the mess hall. He and Scully had been attempting to have their semi-rare dinner in the communal hall when Michael had come over and started hissing into his ear. Opposite them, Scully was chewing on her slice of pizza and observing with raised eyebrows, her long hair out and wavy around the upper arms of her tailored denim jacket.

She knew Mulder was uncomfortable with the sudden violation of his personal space and she also knew Michael was pushing his luck asking her partner for favours. Since Michael had attacked her in her operating theatre at an opportune moment some time previously he had not been Mulder's favourite person. Or hers, for that matter, but she hid it better.

"What's going on?" she asked. Mulder leaned across the table still glaring, and Michael sat down beside him so he could listen. So much for a private conversation, they both thought.

"Michael thinks we should tell everyone here the situation."

"How much of the situation?" Scully asked, her gaze not drifting from Mulder. To her, Michael was no different from all the other people in their lives who had tried to get the 'inside track' on their partnership or their work by hanging around them either because they had been assigned or because they were curious. Scully had never, not once, allowed those types to get what they wanted, and she had already shared enough of herself with Michael. He could not draw her focus from the man who had spoken to her. He wouldn't.

"Not the alien plague bit, that would freak them out. But the plot to kill the supersoldiers," Mulder answered. He was staring back into her eyes but his expression was unreadable.

"How do we know there aren't supersoldier spies here?" Scully asked.

"The supersoldiers are an American invention," Michael whispered. "You're the only ones here who could be spies, and you don't think they haven't thought of that already?"

"Why would they think that?" Mulder asked incredulously, glancing over his shoulder at Michael and frowning.

"Because Dana hasn't died," Michael replied.

"You mean you didn't kill her," Mulder growled. Scully reached across the narrow table and let her hand rest over the top of his, her thumb slipping under his palm.

Mulder was pressing his hand against the table with so much strength and tension Scully knew her touch was almost useless, but it did quiet him. None of them wanted a scene. Nobody else knew what Michael had done in a moment of weakness, or perhaps a moment of truth; for all the time she had spent with him Scully still was not sure. Eddie proved to her that not all aliens were bad, but did Michael prove they weren't all good, or merely that they could be as ignorant of outsiders as an ordinary human?

"What would telling them achieve?" Scully asked. "The science is something Eddie and I need to work out."

"I thought we could harvest some other things to take to the humans," Michael reasoned. "I presume you're going to want more cotton to make bandages and things like that, right?"

"Oh," Scully whispered, blushing slightly at her oversight. "I suppose. I have plenty in storage but, well it depends on what sort of drop we're talking about, and when, and how."

"Once the supersoldiers are defeated that won't be a problem, will it?" Mulder asked.

"Can we wait that long?" Scully asked seriously, frowning with concern. "Eddie and I have decided to trial two methods of liquefaction and experimentation with magnetic fields, but even if one of those is successful we still need time to produce, well, a lot. We can only produce small amounts at a time. It might take a while."

"I don't think we have a choice. We can't just walk it in with the supersoldiers guarding the coast," Mulder explained. "Maybe he's right, Scully. Maybe we should tell them. Maybe 'you' should tell them."

"What?" she huffed, unimpressed. "Why me?"

"Because you're the only one here who can explain it without stuttering or talking in confusing circles," he replied with a small smile. "Because you're a natural teacher. You taught me."

"Oh please," she teased, grinning. She glanced at Michael and his smile widened at his sense of victory. "Call a meeting," she requested.

"Now?" he asked. She nodded, and in less than a second the entire second tower was filled with a low, rhythmic rumbling. It was a much less alarming than the high-pitched emergency signal she had heard before, and she knew from her instructions upon arriving that the low humming was a call for everyone to report to the mess hall.

Scully stood up and began pacing, running through a quick plan of what she was going to say. Michael went to talk but in her periphery she saw Mulder grab his arm to silence him. He knew not to interrupt her while she was rehearsing a presentation. And this time she did not even have anything to rehearse. It would be impromptu, she would be faced with a lot of questions, and she would need to be as diplomatic and as clear as possible.

Not everybody there spoke good English, and they were the only Americans. She knew the general opinion of the rest of the world, and she knew that a lot of them blamed America without actually knowing the truth. And somehow in less time than it took to finish a slice of pizza it had been decided that she, the only woman left in the complex, would have to confirm that truth which they all knew.

She gasped and jumped when Eddie came up behind her and touched her elbow gently. She spun around to face him and he smiled, taking a step back and letting her go but accepting her shock for what it had been, a normal human reaction to an unsuspected touch.

"Don't reveal us," he urged, his smile not leaving him. "Please."

"No, no, I won't, and I won't mention the real reason you're here but I will have to confirm the agreement, I think. I don't know what I'm going to say for how 'I' know though. I don't want to face any anger here, and my country wasn't necessarily known for its diplomatic tact."

"But you are known for it, are you not?" he asked hopefully. Scully smirked.

"I sure hope so!" she teased.

Some minutes later, Eddie nodded to her to let her know the room was complete. It was certainly full, she realised, looking around. The testosterone was stifling. She was surrounded by ninety-two men. It was like being back in Quantico. Although there had been other women there, Scully with her medical background had never quite fit in with them, and she had preferred solitude or being surrounded by men to segregating herself within a clique of women. She knew she could stand up to the room in front of her with the same cool composition that had allowed her to teach science and medicine to others, throughout her career in the FBI and later at her hospital in Virginia. There was just one, little problem, she realised as she looked around.

She could not see them all. Most of the men, none of them younger than thirty, were sitting at the long, narrow tables, but a few were standing around talking. Scully wanted to make sure they could all see her, that they could all look into her eyes as she spoke and trust in her voice and at five foot two in her flat shoes that was currently impossible.

"Scully," Mulder mumbled, suddenly beside her. One of his hands wrapped under the denim of her elbow and urged her towards the seat. She got the idea and glanced at him nervously. He smirked. I won't let you fall, he added silently, assuring her with his expression. She flashed a brief but wide smile in return and allowed him to help her step up.

All eyes were on her as she balanced herself with a wide stance, hands on her hips. She was glad she had left her lab coat in Tower One and that she had gone to their quarters with Mulder first to change before dinner. She knew she looked casual in her dark jeans and jacket and her black shirt, and she knew her orange hair, thick and wavy and long, always caught people's attention. Not that she really wanted them to see her as a woman. That thought made her too uncomfortable, being the only one. She was just glad she looked like them, with no white coat to define her or mark her as different. Because she wasn't, not really.

"Good evening," she stated, projecting her voice coolly and smiling. She knew for a lot of them it was merely lunch time, but it was her dinner time so she let her greeting rest as it was. Time was too complicated for anybody to start arguing. "Thank you to everyone who responded to the signal. I know it was the first time it has been used. I asked for you all to come here today so I could explain what we have been working on in Tower One and what our plans are. First of all, can everyone understand me?" A few men around the room nodded as she quickly scanned the group. All eyes were on her, and that was the most important thing. "If anyone has problems understanding my English I apologise, and you can come and speak to either myself or Mulder and we'll be happy to explain more carefully for you. There are two things I'd like to speak about tonight and I'll try to be brief because I know you all have places to be. But it's necessary that I update you in the work I've been conducting here, because as participants and residents at this complex you deserve to know the truth. As humans, you deserve to know the truth."

"Are you a human?" somebody called out. Laughter flitted around the room and Scully laughed. It wasn't anything she hadn't heard before since arriving.

"Yes I am human," she assured them. "Most of you know that I am a medical doctor. What you do not know is that for ten years I worked for the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, based in Washington DC in America, as a scientist, as a forensic pathologist, as a teacher and as a federal agent. That's relevant to my knowledge here and the role in which I have been afforded in what I am about to describe." Silence descended upon the room and Scully knew it was a stunned silence. Standing in front of them in denim with loose hair that stopped past her waist and needing to stand on a chair to communicate effectively with the room, she knew she did not look very much like a FBI agent. She decided to launch into her explanation, and they could ask disbelieving questions of her later.

"As most of you know you were brought here to help cultivate and protect resources of the earth which were taken from us by an alien race. I don't know how many of you believe in extraterrestrials, or how many of you believe in what you have been told has happened to our world. I don't know how long you have all been here, I don't even know how long I've been here, but I know there has been a lot of time to let it sink in and yet not enough time." A few more nods caught her eyes and she offered them all an understanding smile.

"Tonight I'd like to tell you about something myself and Mulder have been working on that may bring us some hope. What I need to begin with is this; the resources of the Southern Hemisphere have survived, but are being guarded. Not by aliens, but by something which we call a supersoldier. They are a human, made invincible, and were created first by the United States government as part of their defence program.

"They were to be used as soldiers in wars, soldiers who could not be killed by ordinary human weapons. I have seen these supersoldiers in my life before the invasion. I studied them and have fought them. They cannot be beaten by human means. If a bomb was dropped directly onto their heads they would appear to suffer the same fatal human injuries as we would, but very quickly they would heal and return to their normal bodies. They would not even have a scar."

"Are you one?" somebody called out. She suspected it was the same voice who had asked whether or not she was alien.

"Why do you ask that?" Scully pressed.

"Because you're the only woman who's been here who hasn't 'disappeared' or died," he answered. Scully scratched her head.

"I don't know what killed the two women who died sometime after my arrival, and I don't know what happened to the other women here. Nobody has told me. But I can prove to you that I'm not a supersoldier. She removed her denim jacket and held it out to Mulder. Their eyes locked at the sound of wolf-whistles and Mulder offered her an amused but concerned smirk. He did not know what she was going to do. Scully knew he thought she was going to hurt herself in front of them to prove she could not be healed, but what he had forgotten was that she had already hurt herself once, and the evidence was still plainly visible.

"I don't know how many of you can see this," Scully urged, holding her left arm out with the palm facing outwards and pointing to her wrist. The scar from where she had violently and deeply split her skin with a thick, jagged scrap of glass was raised and still a fleshy pink colour several shades pinker than the lily-white inside of her wrist.

"When the North was destroyed," she explained. "At the time I had been alone in my home in Virginia. I journeyed to DC where I had spent a lot of time in my profession and I discovered my mother's body. I believed Mulder to be dead also. In a moment of weakness I attempted to kill myself. A supersoldier would not have contemplated ending their life because their lives cannot end. If I was a supersoldier I would not have scarred at all, let alone so visibly, and I would have felt no emotion at being left alone in a world that had all but ended. I won't lie and say I wasn't distraught, but it turned out I wasn't alone, so I recovered."

Scully paused, glancing at their faces. Satisfied by their open mouths and the men squinting in the back, straining to see the definition on her wrist, she turned back to Mulder for her jacket and slipped it back onto her shoulders. It might have been denim, but she felt more professional in a jacket; she felt more protected. She wanted her wrist covered since she had drawn attention to it. She had never been so blunt about her personal life with strangers, but she knew it was necessary. She HAD to make them trust her.

"I've just told you a supersoldier cannot be killed, but Mulder and I do know of a way. We discovered it in our work with the FBI. There were people in our government who knew about this project but they were high up and most agents did not know. Mulder and I investigated these conspiracies, and I can confirm for you today that the American government knew about the planned alien invasion for many decades, and that it deliberately hid its knowledge from the American people and the rest of the world, though I suspect other governments had some knowledge of their plans at certain times.

"When Mulder and I found out about the supersoldiers, we were pursued by them, and we discovered a way that they could be killed. As I am speaking to you, the supersoldiers are colonising the Southern Hemisphere. They are a generation of invincible humans or robots, but they are controlled by humans. A supersoldier cannot think for itself; it is a machine and a weapon, and it needs a free-thinking instructor behind it, giving it a job or a role. This is one of their weaknesses. The other is a mineral iron oxide called Magnetite. It is found in naturally in several parts of the world. We have a storage of Magnetite here."

"I am currently trying to discover a way which this magnetite can be reproduced and delivered to the supersoldiers, to destroy them. Now before you ask any questions, and I know there will be a lot, I can also confirm that humans have survived in small pockets in the south in areas where Magnetite is contained within the earth. We estimate there may be as few as two thousand people left, but it is enough and we must do everything in our powers here to ensure their survival."

"What happened to everyone else in the south?" one man asked.

"They were killed by the supersoldiers," she replied. "In the North a virus cultivated by the supersoldier program was released to kill all those in the Northern Hemisphere, to allow the resources from those bodies to be taken by the aliens. It was part of the agreement between the aliens and the supersoldiers as to who got each half. In the south, the supersoldiers murdered millions of people because that is what they do, and they were ordered to do so. The supersoldiers know that some humans have survived but are unable to attack the remaining human colonies because they cannot get close enough, and they do not have the electricity required to power long-range missiles."

"So there are actually people still alive?"

"Yes," Scully repeated definitely. "If you have not noticed, this room is not filled with anyone capable of reproducing. If it was just us, we would be extinct in perhaps as little as forty years. The human colonies contain a large number of surviving families and young children. We believe at least one of those colonies is in central South America, and there are also colonies in southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand. They have no electricity and potentially no running water. As pre-existing human resources within those colonies run out, the standard of hygiene will decrease and the risk of communicable disease will increase. Medicine in the colonies is also finite. I suspect they will have access to medications from the local hospitals if there are any in the area, but these will also run out without means of importing or reproducing. We are in the process of getting together a large assortment of various medications and sanitary products to assist these colonies, and within each of your specialties we may require assistance in harvesting and packaging."

"So who saved YOU?" somebody asked. "Why were you and Mulder brought here so late? Was it to do all this stuff? Because you know we were lied to, to get us to come here."

"I know that may be the case with many of you," Scully assured them calmly. "I give you my word that this was not planned. When the invasion came I was in my home after a long double shift at the hospital I worked at, and as far as I was aware it was a normal night. I then survived in the desert for a long period of time by looting the homes of the dead for food and water, and for all that time none of the people behind this complex would have known I was alive. When I came further south with Mulder, we were told by a supersoldier that I would not be allowed into one of the human colonies, and that-"

"Why not?" Scully flinched at the question because it had come from Michael. He already knew. That arrogant little prick, she thought. She pressed her lips together and squinted towards the back wall, for the first time in her speech not making eye contact with anyone.

"The colonies contain many locals who survived in the area, but also a lot of refugee survivors who trickled in. Only those of childbearing capacity were allowed refugee status. I cannot have children." Scully felt her stomach turn at the words which, even after so many years since discovering the truth, still made her feel sick, made her want to curl up into a ball and rock because of her failure, because of what her government had stolen from her, and from Mulder. An embarrassed hush descended over the room and Scully glanced at her feet, determined not to let her voice break as she continued as though she had revealed something as mundane as her favourite colour, and not the most personal, devastating secret of her heart.

"We were told there could be a position as a doctor and a psychologist here. We had no choice but to come here. The alternative was to continue living in the desert until we ran out of water. Mulder is a real psychologist, for those of you who doubt him. He was the best criminal profiler the FBI had seen in decades. He helped catch some of America's worst serial killers, where most other agents would have given up, and he has been integral in our discoveries about the magnetite and the supersoldier program. He wanted the world to know the truth. This is his discovery more than mine. I just put the science behind it."

"How are you gonna use the magnetite to kill them?"

"I'm working on a way to deliver it in liquid form. It can be manufactured by combining iron chloride compounds and would theoretically be soluble in water. We could drop it on them like the rain. We would then subject the area to a magnetic field, activating the magnetite in the water on their skin. Magnetite itself is obviously magnetic; it's how it got its name. Magnetite attracts the supersoldier. Have you all seen those cartoons where perhaps the roadrunner sets up a very large magnet to try to catch Wyle Coyote who has a paperclip stuck to his tail?" More nodding, and a few chuckles. Scully smirked.

"That's the same effect the Magnetite has on the supersoldier. The supersoldier cannot fight it. In the case of nanoscale particles of magnetite suspended in water and subjected to a magnetic field, I believe all the cells in the supersoldier body will be drawn to all the places where the magnetite is, effectively causing massive internal cellular confusion. My hope is that, in subjecting them to this, the supersoldier's body will self-destruct. Once we achieve mass destruction of the supersoldiers, we can enter the human colonies and assist them with supplies."

"Can you show us?"

"When it's ready, yes," she promised. "Obviously we cannot test our project on a real supersoldier because they are hard to catch, but we have some small samples and at this stage we need to start trying something. I believe if we can make this work we could be successful. We are receiving help from outside Antarctica. One of the supersoldiers in the program reacted differently to the others. They have retained their sense of morality and some of their feelings, which they possessed as humans. They were kicked out of the supersoldier program for tipping off the FBI, for assisting me in our early investigations while I was an FBI agent.

"This person has recently killed a number of humans who survived working on the project. Without humans to give supersoldiers their orders, none of them will become the leader, as they have no personality differences like we do, and they don't socialise like we do. If they were all put in a room like this, nobody would be standing on any chair talking unless they were told by their superior to brief the group, and their superiors are all humans. They can all be killed, and they are being killed right now by a supersoldier who wants to help us fix this."

"How can we trust this thing?"

"Because she saved my life and the lives of my friends," Scully answered seriously. "I trust her with my life." There was a hurried whisper around the room and Scully knew why. "The fact that this supersoldier is a woman is the reason we suspect her treatment did not work as well as it has for the men. She was the first woman it was tested on, and it has not been able to completely override her sense of self. The other reason we can all trust her is that in her act of terrorism she demonstrates that she is not a complete supersoldier, for she is free-thinking and actively destroying those which created her. She does not follow orders. She first contacted the FBI because the program was going to contaminate United States water to begin priming women to breed a generation of supersoldiers, and she wanted to stop that. She did. Does that answer your question?"

"So what do we do now?" an older man asked.

"I have been putting in very long hours and will continue to do so. I am open to suggestions or questions, and will be happy to answer everything I can. Mulder also has knowledge of what we are doing and has been assisting me. I am in the process of making a list of everything we may be able to send to the human colonies and I will inform you all of what I may need you to collect from your stations."

"What happens afterwards? Say we kill the supersoldiers and help the colonies. Are we going to live there then, or stay here?"

"Yeah, will we get our countries back?"

"The north is uninhabitable," Scully stated clearly. "I do not know what would happen."

"What do you mean?"

Scully took a deep breath as she carefully thought out her words before they left her mouth.

"In order to do what we are doing, we have and will continue to use technologies provided to us by aliens. You all know this. I have been provided with all the chemicals of our world, and I have been provided the space in which to conduct this research. We will also need the use of alien spacecraft to deliver the antidote to the supersoldiers. This entire complex and its contents, our food, our sanitation, our lives, have been granted to us by this alien race, partly because there are members there who are sympathetic to our situation, and partly because they wanted us as negotiators, as middle men between them and the supersoldiers.

"The blunt truth is this. Our survival is consideration for this agreement that has halved the earth. If the supersoldiers are defeated, we may be allowed to survive in our small numbers and just do our best, but I'll be honest with you all; if the alien race which has afforded us this grace decides our resources are more important to their own survival than any agreement that we are not even party to, we will be powerless to stop the total destruction of our world and we will die. Humans will become extinct. That's all, um, that's all I wanted to say."

Scully tucked her hair behind her ears as tears stung her eyes, and she looked down and to the side for Mulder. He was still standing beside her and watching their audience intently, his eyes narrowed in focus. She crouched to put a hand on his shoulder for balance and once he sensed her moving he caught her around the waist and helped her down from the chair.

"Doctor Scully can I ask a question?" somebody shouted from the back. She reluctantly turned around at ground level, her face flushed with heat and her mouth dry.

"Go ahead," she called back, looking in the general direction of the voice, not able to place its origin until he continued.

"What's 'your' priority in all this? What's more important to you: killing the supersoldiers or saving the humans?"

"Both are my priorities," she replied quickly. She already had that answer sorted, for she had thought about it frequently. "The priority of my mind is that we find a way to defeat the supersoldiers and the rest will come from that. The priority of my heart comes from the knowledge that I have friends who have refugee status in one of the human colonies, who survived with Mulder and I from the United States, who we had to leave in order to come here, and I would like very much to make sure they are okay. I am working on both projects simultaneously, and I will keep you all updated as to our progress. If you'll excuse me-"

Scully turned and walked out before any more questions could be directed at her. They would only be questions about the aliens or her personal affiliation with them or her friends or her training and she really did not want to deal with any of that. Not that night. Not anymore.

She had barely begun ascending the steps, her shoes squeaking on their polished cream surface, when Eddie caught up to her, his long legs easily covering the distance she had strived to put between herself and the rest of the group.

"Hey!" he called, coming to a stop a very respectable three steps below her. He was still taller. "You were really blunt in there," he told her. "I think they appreciated it."

Scully knew tears had started leaking from her eyes and she felt ashamed of losing control of her emotions so easily just because she had admitted possible extinction. She was a scientist. Species had come and gone across the world for hundreds of millions of years, and she knew as a scientist she should have been able to accept that. But as a person extinction only reminded her that her life was worthless, that she could do nothing about the loss of her or Mulder's genetic bloodlines, and that she was just carbon. She did not want to be reduced to a carbon carcass. She did not think that was all she was. But she was not arrogant enough to think she was more than anyone else. And she was not naive enough to believe the aliens would save them. She and Mulder had been deceived too many times to embrace that fantasy.

"And I always wondered about your wrist," Eddie added more softly, watching her with curious interest. Scully felt her forty year old knees buckle then and she let herself walk down the stairs towards him, wrapping her arms around his firm, slim waist for a hug.

Eddie let his hands rest uncertainly on her back as she wept into his chest. He could not believe she was hugging him. He had seen her hold Mulder, and he had seen and read a lot, but he had never experienced the giving of human affection for himself. His people did not touch that way, they did not go to each other for physical comfort, but in his human body he felt more comfortable with the contact, and touching her on the arm to get her attention had become almost second nature. The feel of her hot tears against his thin shirt was also new, and his body shivered as it soaked up some of her emotion.

"Are you okay Dana?" he asked. She nodded but did not move, only tightening her grip around his waist. He had seen her reach up to hold Mulder around the neck, but Mulder almost had to lift her off the ground or lean far over for her to do that, and Eddie knew he was just too tall. "Why are you crying?"

"You've seen me cry," she whispered, pulling back and brushing her hands over her cheeks. Eddie stared at the way they had gone patchy, unnaturally pale in some places, bright red in others. Her blue eyes were wide, wet and bloodshot and she looked incredibly tired and very old, he realised sadly.

"It's okay," he assured her. "Don't stop on my account." She blinked back a few more tears and shook her head. "Did I do it wrong?" he asked honestly. Her eyes flicked up to him with an intensity he could only describe as human, and potentially something unique to her. He had not seen it in any of the others present at the complex. There was a vibrancy to her, and Eddie knew enough about the human concept of beauty to know that while she was not big-breasted or blonde or leggy, she was artistically beautiful; somebody famous on earth may have painted her. He had never really appreciated that for himself until that moment when her lips parted and she shook her head, bewildered by his innocent question.

"No, you didn't do it wrong," she whispered seriously. "Did I, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have. I just needed... I made you uncomfortable. I shouldn't have, I'm so sorry Eddie."

"Don't apologise," he replied, reaching out and touching her upper arm in the familiar way he was comfortable with. The touch was brief, and he let his long arm fall back down at his side. "I just have never hugged anybody before, and never a woman who is crying. I...did not realise when I followed you that you were so upset. I should have left you alone."

"Sometimes I don't do so well upset on my own," she announced with a derisive smile. "I'm not upset, really, just overwhelmed. I haven't briefed such a large number in a long time, and I have never felt the need to justify myself personally like I did in there. In my old life, I would have only explained my wrist if I had been forced into giving an answer, and I never would have told anybody about my infertility, and I never, ever would have even thought about the possibility of human extinction in my lifetime or the next, or the next."

"Your next lifetime?" Eddie asked, amused. "You were hoping to return? I thought you were Roman Catholic and believed in eternal life in Heaven."

"I do," she replied with a frown. "I mean I think I do, but I believe in other things. My beliefs live side by side. I suppose one of my dreams is that Mulder and I could know each other in another life and have all the things we would want out of this one that we can't have now."

"It hurts you to admit your infertility in public?" he asked.

"I had a child once," she confessed in a whisper. "He was a miracle, but not meant to be-"

"I know that Dana," Eddie told her gently. She frowned at him with immediate distrust and took a step back. "It's okay," he assured her. "I never wanted to bring it up because I didn't know...how you felt about what had been done. I...know that in the end he was no longer something which genetically represented a shared bond between your species and mine. Once I knew that, I stopped paying attention as to where he was. I assume he is dead." She nodded.

"I sent him to live with another family for his protection, another infertile couple who wanted a child," she explained, her voice shaking. "Mulder wasn't around at the time. He was in danger too. I...I made the decision to send our baby away on my own, and I don't think I will ever forgive myself and I think that, I suppose to answer your question, to think about what I can't ever get back physically hurts me, yes, it makes me sick. It's emotional torture."

"We do not have this bond with our children," he confessed. "It's very unusual but I know it is common here. Your other animals are all similar-"

"A lot of species on earth are like this," she replied. "Though not all consciously. It's part of the socialising system that's in our nature. I can't explain to you what an ape or a lion feels for its young, but for a human to have a child is such an overwhelmingly loving experience and I...would give anything to be able to share that with Mulder. I understand why you stripped the north of its resources to find a cure for your plague. I don't agree with the method, but I understand, because if Mulder and I were younger and there was a cure for what was done to me and we had to destroy half the world to find it, we might have tried."

"I assume there is not one upstairs in your storage." She shook her head.

"I uh, Eddie I'm going to go upstairs to my quarters now. Please don't tell Mulder I was so upset. I'm sure he's in there answering all these questions and I just walked out and left him-"

"He'll understand," Eddie mumbled. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yes. I'm just going upstairs to have a shower and perhaps a cry, and go to sleep," she sighed, running her hands through her hair. "Suddenly I'm not feeling well."

"You should take the elevator," he suggested kindly. She shook her head. The speed at which the elevator rose to the top floor would only make her more nauseous.

"Eddie," she replied with a gentle smile. "How long have you been studying humans for?"

"Since long before you were born," he answered. "Why?"

"I just wanted to know if I could get away with this," she laughed, reaching her hands up to his face and urging him down. He bent forward, trusting her, and was surprised when she pressed her lips quickly to his cheek, the kiss so brief he barely felt it. "Thank you," she added sincerely as she released him. He stared at her in shock. "Goodnight, Eddie."

"Goodnight Dana," he echoed automatically, watching her turn and jog quickly up the spiral steps towards her home.

Eddie was still standing on the steps in shock when Mulder dawdled past him some time later. Mulder was so focussed he barely acknowledged Eddie on his way past, and Eddie watched him make his way slowly up the steps. There was no hurry on his part to get upstairs, and Eddie knew he was going home. Not often had he seen Mulder with slumped shoulders or a hung head, and he wasn't sure why but the image struck him as odd considering the message of hope they had just brought to the other residents.

Perhaps he was as saddened by what Scully had said, or perhaps somebody inside the mess hall had said something insulting to him, maybe about Scully. Eddie knew Mulder well enough to realise the man's existence revolved around the orange-haired woman. Mulder would not know how to live without her, and Eddie was just beginning to understand that despite all the rational training and science in her mind, Scully was exactly the same.

When the residents had dissipated, Michael came to stand beside Eddie in the hallway. They communicated telepathically, without words so as to shield their conversation from others.

'They don't trust us,' Michael began. 'Dana said she doesn't know what will happen in the end and inside just now Mulder confirmed it when asked again.'

'Because they do not know what will happen,' Eddie replied. 'She knows me, she knows what I want, but none of us are kidding ourselves. Mulder and Dana never had a say in their own government's actions, just as I do not have a say in mine. They think we will betray them. They think a few thousand humans cannot build a new world, and they think they will die. They 'feel' it; I can see it in their eyes, but they do not panic. They merely grieve. I do know they are getting more miserable as the experiments persist. They have gone upstairs, probably to cry together because they think they will die and they cannot have a baby.'

'Then they know our problem.'

'They do,' Eddie confirmed. 'But in return none of us could ever know their pain. You should not have asked Dana so directly when you already knew the answer and she had already implied the truth. That was cruel of you because it inflicted public pain upon them. If we defeat the supersoldiers, we cannot take their lives from them. I don't want to end this world. How can we help save them only to destroy it? Why prolong that sort of suffering?'

'You don't get to decide that. We have to follow whatever orders we're given.'

'But if there was no cure for us in the north there cannot be one in the south. It's scientifically improbable. The environments are too much of the same. What if it's not their time? What if it is simply 'our' time to become extinct?'

'That's just great,' Michael shot back, levelling Eddie with a sarcastic glare. 'Do YOU want to go home and tell them or should I?'


	6. Chapter 6

Six

Mulder found Scully sitting in the light just a metre from the upper exit of Tower One. Upon not finding her in their quarters as he had expected, he had searched the medical areas and then decided to stick his head out into the cold. The sky was bright blue and unobscured by clouds. The sun was high in the sky and reflected the white of the landscape straight up into his eyes. He had to squint, but in the foreground to the brightness he saw the petite female silhouette sitting in the snow.

After retreating briefly to find sunglasses and the thick, dark jacket and navy beanie they kept for him at the top of the tower he joined her. His footsteps were slow and heavy in the snow and ice, and when he sat down beside her he knew they would need a hot shower in the near future; his backside was instantly numb. Scully was dressed in her own coat, he realised, but she wore no protection on her head or face, and her hands were also bare as they wrapped around her raised knees. Her chin rested on them, and she stared straight ahead with unshaded blue eyes. Mulder took a similar position beside her, but kept his eyes on her and waited. He knew she had something to say; he could see the need to speak in her face.

"Mulder do you think I'm weak?" she asked suddenly, her familiar voice gentle. He shook his head, smirking. How could she possibly think that, he wondered?

"They believe us, for now," he mumbled, not sure how to reassure her and deciding to tell her the information he had gleaned from their 'roommates' since her sudden departure. "They are all curious about the magnetite and how it will kill the supersoldiers. You really captured their imaginations with the roadrunner reference and by saying their cells would self-destruct. I think they were happy somebody has been doing something, but I have a feeling they still think we are aliens, and I also think...there's a portion of them who are very suspicious of us because you have survived. Nobody suspects Eddie or Michael."

"Michael's a pig," she whispered.

"I know," Mulder agreed softly, reaching a hand out to comb through her hair. It was so cold it felt dry and almost brittle beneath his fingers. "Honey we shouldn't be out here dressed like this," he added. "You'll hurt your eyes without sunnies."

"I just wanted some fresh air."

"What's going on, Scully?" Mulder asked with a confused frown. "I'm starting to worry about you. You've been quieter than usual over these last...over this last year. It's light again all the time. It's been a year. Here." He removed his sunglasses and handed them to her but she pushed his offering away with a gentle hand, shaking her head. "Scully," Mulder continued. "You've been withdrawn since Shannon visited us a while ago now, and sad and... Is there anything I can say to...make it better? Can you talk to me?"

"At first," she whispered, staring straight ahead to avoid looking down at the blinding white of the snow. "We started off so strangely here, but I thought it was getting better. But I think I've come to realise that it was never really better, just different."

"What are you talking about?" Mulder asked. His brown eyes were wide beneath his sunglasses and he shook his head, his brow deeply furrowed. He had no idea what was bothering her so much. He knew it was something important, but though he had the keys to the rest of her Scully's mind continued to evade him. He thought it always would, and it was why he could never leave. He had to know her thoughts. He wanted to hear everything.

"Mulder you're right," she huffed, blinking back tears. "They don't trust us. I'm not sure anymore even if Eddie trusts us. We're just humans. We're simple to them. What do we have that they need? We have nothing. What if all this is just an illusion? What if it's not real?"

"Scully, it is real," Mulder insisted.

"I'm really tired Mulder," she admitted in a whisper. "I'm really tired of living like this." Mulder sighed and wrapped an arm around her back. She leant forward and cried into her knees as he watched her, tears stinging his eyes. He knew what was coming and he knew he couldn't say anything to help, but her words still cut at him because he felt them too. "I want to go home," she wept. "I don't want to die here."

Mulder remained silent and let her cry. He didn't dare speak. What was he supposed to say? How could he tell her that he would die for her if he could, and how was he meant to remind her that she was home with him, no matter where they were? Had she forgotten?

"We've been working long days in the lab without any breaks," he mumbled eventually. The words sounded useless to his ears. What were they for? To justify how tired she was? Hardly.

"And I'll keep doing that," she promised seriously, not lifting her forehead from her knees. "I'll keep doing it until we can defeat the supersoldiers, but then... I don't want to stay here."

"What are you saying?" he asked. "Look at me, Dana." She turned her head towards him then, squinting into the sun. Tears marked her cheeks and her breath puffed between her lips in little clouds, mixing with his. His heart was beating quickly in his chest and his rapid breaths matched the rise and fall of her shoulders as the anxiety built between them.

"If we defeat the supersoldiers," she hissed, her blue eyes silently pleading with him in an expression Mulder had rarely been able to refuse. "I want to go home, to one of the colonies, to be a doctor and to...help Mulder. I feel useless here, and don't tell me that I'm not and that I'm doing good work and building some sort of legacy because I don't have any friends here and I don't feel human anymore. I feel like something else. This isn't...my world here, and it's not yours no matter what you can bring to that room. It's too easy. It's all just...too easy."

"So you're ready to give up?" he pressed seriously. "How can 'this' not be challenging enough? You've resigned yourself to the fact that you're going to die? That we all are?"

"Mulder," Scully hissed, shaking her head with those wise eyes sparkling with what he had sometimes read as pity for his lack of understanding. "I don't think I'll be happy until I die."

Mulder turned his head away and exhaled all the air out of his lungs in a sharp breath. He felt sick. He felt like she had just stabbed him in the gut. He pushed himself to his feet and stormed a few paces away before turning back and putting his hands on his hips. He needed distance. He was angry, and he knew she was hurting but dammit, he was angry at her.

"What the fuck gives you the right to say something like that to me?" he exclaimed. Scully's expression dropped in shock as she scrambled to her feet. "Does this mean absolutely nothing to you? Do you lay awake at night beside me wishing you hit the vein when you tried? After we make love do you think about how much happier you would be if you were dead? You're saying you're not happy? With 'this'?"

"No, Mulder," Scully pressed, watching as he gestured frantically between them, panicking. "Mulder, I love you-"

"Oh sure, but you won't be TRULY happy until you're dead!" he yelled. "Isn't that right?"

"Mulder we could already be dead for all I know!" she shouted. "We could be on a table somewhere and this might be all some sort of sick test!"

"I refuse to believe this is all some dream, Scully." He sighed, waiting for her to say something else but she didn't. "How can you not be happy here?" he asked, his voice cracking. "How can you want to leave me?"

"I never said that Mulder," she sobbed, taking a few hurried steps towards him before changing her mind and backing away, afraid of his anger, afraid she might break down if she got too close to the arms she knew made her feel safe and loved. "I never said that," she repeated, hissing as she fought against her tears. She was sick of crying. She did not want to do it anymore. She did not want him to comfort her again. She had to match him. She could not let him think she was weak; in fact she had been a source of HIS strength many times.

And he had just put words in her mouth about their relationship that she had NEVER said.

Anger quickly quelled any lingering sadness. Scully planted her feet in the snow and leant forward, her blue eyes squinting, her expression glaring. Her anger had always been cold, controlled and icy, but not anymore. Once beckoned, her fiery, unbridled temper surged through her at a frightening pace that left her breathless and with a throbbing headache.

"You wanted to know what was wrong with me, dammit!" she exclaimed, her voice steadily rising as hot, passionate rage engulfed her. "You wanted to know what was wrong and so I told you. What gives YOU the right to throw it back in my face? What's WRONG is that I don't feel myself lately. I don't feel like 'me'. I feel like some scientist in some alien laboratory trying to save the world. I CAN'T SAVE THE WORLD, MULDER. I CAN'T!"

"Scully, together we can do anything," Mulder replied, his voice serious, gentle and innocent. He was stunned by the rapid swing in mood and her high pitched screams. He had never heard her so distraught. There was no longer anything holding her back. There was nothing keeping her together. Suddenly he could really picture her coming apart in her mother's house with the broken glass. He could finally believe it. He felt like he was dying believing it.

"We can't do ANYTHING together!" she cried. "Mulder, we can't do anything. We can't even..." She hesitated, laughing into her hands and turning around in a full circle before throwing her arms elaborately against her sides, as though defeated by the frankness and stupidity of her words. "Mulder we can't even help repopulate the earth. We're STUCK here and I HATE that I never got a choice. I HATE IT!"

"Scully-"

"Don't 'Scully' me!" she growled. "I just stood up and told those people that their world was ending. Do you know how that makes me feel? And you, and Eddie and Michael were all too CHICKEN SHIT to do it yourselves! Oh no, Scully can handle it. Mulder what makes you think I have EVER handled it? You piece of shit! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE-"

"DANA!" Mulder screamed. "Shut the fuck up for a second, will you?" Scully shook her head and turned away from him, beginning to trek across the snow and ice as fast as her short but strong legs would carry her. Mulder jogged up to her and grabbed her arm, stopping her midstride.

Scully screamed as soon as he touched her, but it was a deep and pained scream. It was a scream not of fear but of frustration, and it was the only sound above the ice sheet. Her anger sliced easily through the still air. She ripped the silence apart so her scream could fill the void created, so she could be heard. Mulder knew all she wanted was to be heard. He did not let go of her arm. The scream went on for what seemed like a long time, until her voice cracked, and then it stopped as suddenly as it had started. Then the silent fight began.

"I know, I know," he whispered, allowing her to wordlessly and viciously struggle against his grip, allowing her to fight him the way he thought she wanted to. "I hate you sometimes too," he told her, fully aware he was hurting her, but knowing that when she was done he would take his words back and tend to her bruises with all of his heart. "You know why?" he asked.

She reached up to try to pry his fingers from around the upper arm of her jacket but Mulder clasped his other hand around her waist on the inside of her jacket, underneath her denim coat, against the black cotton of her top where he could get a tighter hold. Mulder really hoped his decision to let her hear him and fight him was the right one. It was not something he had ever tried before, but he was desperate. Maybe they needed it. Maybe she needed it.

"Do you know why I hate you?" he pressed. Scully refused to look at him as she twisted violently in his arms. "Because you gave away our son," he told her, his voice a constant, serious monotone. Inside, he was breaking. "Because you tried to kill yourself. Because you're so Goddamned proud it's hard to love you. Because you would rather die proud than die with me. Because we've known each other more than fifteen years and you still won't let me in. Because you can't give me children and your fucking 'everything' won't let me leave. Because you sucked me in and then you took everything away. Somewhere along the way you stopped believing in us but I never, ever stopped believing in you. Do you understand?"

Scully had stopped struggling and she stared at his chest, her breath coming in hurried gasps as she sucked in what little oxygen she could. Mulder wanted to sit her down before she hyperventilated and passed out, but instead he remained standing, his large, strong hands clasped around her waist and shoulder. He was not sure how long they stood silently right in front of each other as though the whole world was between them. He had never felt so far from her, and she was right beneath his hands, right in front of him. She was lost, he realised with a stab of grief. He hadn't been paying enough attention to see. He had to get her back.

"Dana, look at me," he urged once more, giving her an eternity to find the strength to lift her chin and face his eyes. He released her shoulder to take off his sunglasses, throwing them into the snow at their feet. She was not distracted by his movements, and neither was he. He needed to look her in the eyes. "We've been here before," he told her. "Maybe we have never come quite this far, but we have been here. When I lost Samantha, when you had cancer, when I was abducted, the year I left you and William, and after the invasion. We got through it because even though there were things that made us angry, there were more important things that kept us moving forward. And maybe now we are moving forward to death, but how is that different from any other path we have travelled before? You and I have seen death, Dana, and you of all people should know that there is nothing to fear. Talk to me."

Scully opened her mouth to speak but stopped as a single tear drifted down her cheek. He felt her breathing change and knew she had come back to him. The expression in her eyes shifted from wild comprehension to genuine passion and strength. He could almost feel her return.

"Losing you is the only thing I truly fear," she whispered as another tear trickled to join its mate. "I don't hate you Mulder."

"I don't hate you either," he conceded with a smile, reaching gentle fingers up to stroke along her jaw, soothing the tension he could see there. Her lips parted more naturally as she relaxed and sniffled, watching him with wide eyes. "I get angry about our lives sometimes, but I could never hate you. Will you really not be happy again until you die? Is it me? You can tell me the truth sweetheart."

"It's not you," she promised, swallowing heavily. "I...I think I am happy now but I...I am afraid, Mulder. When I was dying with cancer I was afraid, but not like this. Back then, I was afraid that life would go on without me. Now I am afraid that life won't go on, and this hurts more because...I guess I...don't know how to accept it, and I don't know how to survive in limbo pretending that everything will be okay when it probably won't."

"Do you understand that I have the same fears?" Mulder asked, still holding her jaw. She pressed her lips together and gave a brief nod. "Do you know how strong I think you are? How beautiful? Do you know how much I respect you? It's okay to be scared, it's okay to scream until you lose your voice, but please, Dana, don't lose faith, not in this, or in me, or in us, or in your ability to make a difference. We will make a difference, Dana. We will."

"But then what?" she asked, worried. Mulder shook his head as his thumb brushed over her cheek, red from her tears and the cold.

"Then we can go wherever you want," he promised. "I just want you to be happy. I just want you to talk to me."

"I 'just' tried that," she insisted, chuckling when he stared at her blankly. "You bit my head off! I never, I never said...Mulder, when we're in bed together I could never think...Those moments are when I am happiest, Mulder. When you read me Charles Dickens or Moby Dick off the top of your head to help me sleep, when we are together, when we cuddle I... Please don't take those things away from me."

"I couldn't," he assured her, pulling her to him for a hug. She slid her cold, numb hands onto his bare back underneath his jacket and sweater and he flinched but pulled her closer to him. "You're freezing," he whispered to the crown of her head.

"I feel horrible," she conceded. "I feel like my insides are coming apart, like there's a gaping hole and I, I can't feel anything. I don't feel cold."

"It's the shock and the chill," he promised. "Come and have a shower with me, and then maybe I'll read you another chapter of your favourite book?"

"I think I need some quiet time; my head is throbbing. I should take something tonight," she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut when Mulder trailed concerned, chilled fingertips through her hair and around her neck. "A sedative," she elaborated. "Would that be okay?"

"Of course that's okay," he hissed, resting his chin on top of her head, contemplating the fact she was voluntarily prescribing herself a relaxant. Ten years previously he might have had to force one down her throat. But if it meant her sleep was deep and painless, he did not care.

"I just want to pass out," she told him. She remembered saying those words to Skinner a long time ago, and the admission still stung her pride. "I'm so sorry, Fox. I try to let you in, I do."

"I know. You do let me in. I overreacted. The only way I'm getting through all this is by telling myself how much being here with you matters, and to think that you would rather be-"

"Don't say it," she interrupted hurriedly, looking up into his eyes as he stared down at her. "Please don't say it," she repeated in a whisper. "I didn't mean it. I didn't. Please."

"Shh," Mulder hushed, leaning forward and touching his forehead to hers. Their eyes shut as they breathed deeply against one another, the sensation of their shared skin calming and spiritual. "I promise. I know you didn't mean it. I didn't mean what I said either."

"I don't know how to explain to you what I meant."

"You don't have to, Dana. Can you walk? If we stay out here much longer you'll burn, and your head is freezing. I know you dislike being taken care of, but let me put you in a warm bath before you take anything?"

"I don't dislike it when I feel this raw," she whispered, stroking her fingers along his stubble-roughened jaw as their noses nuzzled. "I am so in love with you Fox," she hissed. "I already feel better. A bath sounds wonderful, but can we just stand here a bit longer?"

"No rush," he assured her. "But I'm glad. You might not realise this Scully, because maybe sometimes it seems the other way around, but 'you' are carrying 'me' through this. You always have been. As soon as Gibson told me on that bus what was going to happen, all I wanted...was this. I need you." She nodded as they remained in their intimate embrace. Mulder only pulled away when he felt her forehead trembling. He stared at her, worried, as she glanced upwards. There were no tears in her eyes but they were ringed with exhaustion, and her nose and ears were red from the sub-zero outdoor air. He smiled at her kindly.

"Little chilly?" he teased hopefully. She afforded him a small smile, but it was more than he could have hoped for. Her eyes glittered with unexpressed humour. She would be okay, he realised gratefully. A long sleep, a warm cup of tea and a few talks and cuddles, and they would both be just fine. And no more talk about extinction or death. At least not for a while.

"How are we going to need to package all of this?" Mulder asked as he stared at their bottled collection of magnetite-rich ferrofluid stacked in large, industrial bottles against the wall of the research lab. Scully had her back to him, working against the bench to review her inventory of vaccines and antibiotics. She turned at the sound of his voice and walked to him, surveying the filled bottles. She tried hard not to look at Mulder; he was wearing a white lab coat over his jeans and dark jumper and though she had forced him to wear it on earlier occasions she still thought he looked adorably out of place. "Is it enough?" he asked nervously. It did not look like enough. There were only one hundred litres of fluid.

"We have such small samples to test I don't think we will know until we try. Strategically, Michael wants us to take out the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa first, before we go after the smaller supersoldier establishments in Australasia. Michael says the estimated supersoldier to human ratio is five to one, which equates to approximately ten thousand supersoldiers. At least half of those are in America. Shannon's act of terrorism in West Africa has caused that establishment to scatter."

"Okay but what I don't understand," Mulder continued, leaning up against the bench. "Is how do we find them, and then how do we coat them with enough of this ferrofluid, and then how do we keep them still long enough to subject them to the magnetic field?"

"They're going to have to deliver it over a wide enough area to affect as many as possible," Scully agreed. "I'm hoping we have directional assistance from Ted and Shannon, but I am leaving that up to Michael and Eddie. I just hope Shannon realises she will need to stay hidden for that time. I would hate for this to harm her somehow."

"I'm sure they'll look out for her," Mulder reasoned. "They need her. It would be useful if they could just make it rain this stuff hey? I mean how do you shoot it 'at' the supersoldiers?"

"Mulder, do I look like the captain of an alien spacecraft?" Scully asked in a dry voice. Mulder took the time to cast his eye appreciatively over her long hair tied in a loose braid and her lab coat buttoned at the waist, accentuating her figure. He also did not miss the raised eyebrow and wide smirk as his eyes drifted back to her porcelain but tired face.

"Well..." he began thoughtfully. Scully laughed, reaching out to shove him playfully. Mulder grinned as she turned back to her work.

He was not sure if it was the day after they had fought. They might have slept too long and it was really night time. He couldn't know. But it was their first period of sustained wakefulness since going to bed, so conceivably it was the next day. Mulder tried not to let the confusion about time stress him out; there was nothing he could do about their warped body clocks. As long as it didn't hurt them, they would continue to simply sleep and be awake when it suited them. All he cared about was that they kept the 'same' time, which was why he was so well-rested he was actually missing his bed.

Under the influence of a sedative Scully had slept for a very long time. Mulder was certain he had woken up hours before her, but he had stayed close, reading over notes on their research and dozing. The warm bath had only worsened her headache and he had been worried. He had never been with her when she had taken sedatives or painkillers or whatever she had taken, and he had not been sure whether she would wake remembering every detail of the previous day's lapse in control. He had not been sure whether she would wake up still hating him even though she had promised him she didn't. She had never said that to his face before, but she had told him she had said it the night she cut her wrist. Mulder, like Scully even at the time, had never really believed it was true or truly directed at him. But the previous day's breakdown had unsettled him. What if it was directed at him?

True to their form, they hadn't yet spoken about it. Mulder had finally decided he needed a shower, and by the time he came out Scully had been awake and dressing with a smile on her face.

'Big day of stocktake today,' she had declared. Mulder must have looked stunned and wary about her sudden burst of energy when just minutes beforehand she had been deeply asleep. Or perhaps she hadn't, he realised. Maybe she had just been waiting until he left the room so she could get up and look 'okay' when he returned, so that he didn't hover.

That plan had not worked though. He was still hovering. Subtly. But she knew it.

"Should we talk?" he asked. His back was turned to her back but he felt her flinch.

"Why, Mulder?" Scully asked in a whisper. It had surely been hours since they had gotten to the labs. Why would he want to talk now?

Scully had no words for the shame still burning a hole through her stomach lining. She had dark, brown finger-sized bruises around her upper arm and she knew he had only been trying to help. She had covered the bruises with long sleeves before he had returned from his shower. He had not seen them, so he could not feel guilty about manhandling her just to save her from losing her mind, right? She was the one that felt guilty.

He'd had to hurt her to make her stop. She had driven him to express deep hurt and anger at their lives, thoughts they only shared in their weakest moments. They had never physically struggled before. Scully felt horrible for provoking it, and at the labs she had thought she would be safe from confronting him.

Put the lab coat on, Dana, go back to being Doctor Scully, and give Mulder a labcoat too; another barrier between you both. He won't talk about personal stuff until they're off.

Yeah, good one Doctor. Any more bright ideas?

Scully waited for Mulder to answer her question. He was taking his time. She could hear him breathing and she risked a quick glance over her shoulder. He was still turned away from her, staring at the dusty bottles lined and stacked against the wall. His shoulders looked slumped and his right knee was bending as he shifted his weight thoughtfully from side to side. She turned quickly away before he turned to look at her, still not ready to meet his eyes.

She had been avoiding really looking at him since she had woken to feel him snuggled in beside her in bed, awake and stroking her hair, kissing her temple. She could have started crying then, because how badly did she have to treat him to make him not love her? But she had held it in, not ready, too fragile. She remembered her enforced solitude after the last episode but the latest had not been nearly as severe, and she had Mulder with her, the one thing that had been missing the last time, the one person that would have saved her. Yet with him she felt just as vulnerable and embarrassed.

He was with you the first time too, she told herself, remembering the feel of his arms around her. So perhaps his actual physical presence was not something that should have made her feel better. Perhaps it was what was driving the guilt.

I hate you because you tried to kill yourself.

Please stop. Don't do this sweetheart. Please stop.

I hate you. Because you tried to kill yourself.

"Mulder I'm sorry," she hissed before he found the words. "You don't need to explain why you want to talk to me, that's...a given. I don't know what I've done to deserve you, all this."

"You think there's a catch," he surmised, turning around slowly to see her leaning against the bench, her back still to him. "You think...we got the special treatment and you miss our friends and you're afraid of losing them, or losing us, or losing the world. It upsets you as a scientist because the world is your study, and it upsets you as a person because it's...yours."

Scully scoffed, shaking her head so her braid moved from side to side against her back.

"You always pin me," she mumbled, blushing.

"That's funny, because I don't think I ever have," he admitted with a soft laugh. "Are you gonna turn around?" She shook her head and he grimaced, walking up behind her. He rested his hands gently around her upper arms and let his chin sit on the crown of her head. "I don't mean to make you uncomfortable," he whispered. "But you scared me yesterday. I've never seen you...lose it. I'd never been able to picture it."

"And now you'll never forget it, right?" she whispered sadly.

"No, but I've got a lot of wonderful memories to bury it under," he assured her, kissing the top of her head and holding his lips to her. "Did you see it coming?" he asked.

"No," she hissed, fighting the urge to reach up for his hands to draw his arms securely around her. She needed to know she could stand on her own. She needed to explain to him. "I didn't see it coming the last time either. I had woken up from a nightmare, and I just crashed into this emotional oblivion. I never see it coming. Maybe I ignore the signs, but yesterday I did not think I was that upset. I was thrown off by having to talk about certain things but I...I never thought I was that upset, Mulder. I can't believe it, I...it's like it wasn't me, and then it was again and you were holding onto me and staring at me as though you were afraid I wasn't standing right in front of you. Were you afraid of that?"

"Yes," he conceded. Scully reached up then for his hands and slid her palms over the sleeves of his labcoat as he wrapped them around her chest and waist.

"I don't want to go crazy out here," she continued. "But I don't feel like I am. Right now I'm not claustrophobic, I want to do my job, and I'm glad that I'm alive. I'm ecstatic to have you. I don't deserve you."

"Some people who knew us once might say we deserve each other," he teased into her hair. She chuckled. "I love you," he added in a whisper, tilting his head around hers to touch her temple with his lips. Scully's eyes shut.

"I know Fox," she assured him softly. "I love you too. I don't feel depressed. I just get tired sometimes."

"Everyone needs a release," he promised. "I get tired too. I don't think you're depressed either. You would not have jumped out of bed so eagerly upon waking up if you were."

"I was already awake," she admitted. "I just wasn't sure...you were taking care of me thinking I was asleep and I didn't want to wreck the mood. Does everyone know?"

"I haven't seen or spoken to anyone else today," he replied. "And last night I never left you. I don't think they would have heard your scream, although I'm pretty sure the elephant seals on the coast heard you-" Scully reached her arm up to take a swipe at his head as he laughed.

Mulder tugged on her to turn her around and she complied, tilting her head up as he angled his down. He kissed her with very little warning but it was exactly what she had felt ready for, and she took his face in her hands and opened herself to him, kissing him with all the desire she suddenly felt. The kiss was possessive and reassuring and Mulder reached for the bench either side of her hips, pinning her against it but giving her hands plenty of room between them to freely explore him. He might have been pinning her and steadying them against the bench, but she was in complete control.

"Not here," she huffed once he drew his lips from hers and claimed her neck. She pressed herself into him as though to seek his touch but he was purposefully using all his self-restraint not to touch her.

"Where?" Mulder mumbled into her skin, wet with his saliva, her pulse drumming fast and hard against his tongue. She moaned and arched back against the table, reaching for one of his hands. Impatiently, she pried his fingers away from the metal and unlike his grip on her arm the previous day, he let her. She pressed his hand into her lower back and with that permission he held a firm arm around her underneath her lab coat. He felt her relax in his embrace and nibbled his way up to her ear. "Where?" he repeated. He expected her to tell him they would be hurrying back to their quarters. He did not expect her to do what she did, which was run her lips over his rough jaw and nod towards the closed storage room door.

Mulder did not know why, but he was suddenly incredibly turned on. She wanted to have sex with him on the floor in the room which held the cures for all of mankind's ills. Was that meant to mean something he should understand on a primal level? Had she thought about it? He found himself nodding before he had answered any of his own questions and seeking out her lips once more. He finally pressed himself against her, hunched over to meet her height, trying to pull her up so her shorter frame fit against his. Their hips thrust instinctively and Mulder knew there was to be no finesse. Not that he minded. Not this time, anyway.

xxx 

Mulder let his back rest against the cool shower wall as he fought back tears he had been holding in for at least the day. After defiling the storeroom with the kind of sex reminiscent of something he might have seen on the National Geographic channel, he had been stroking Scully's reddened, aching kneecaps in the storeroom while trying to ignore his own sore knees. He had commented that he thought they were getting too old for sex on floors, and she had suggested going home. Luckily there was a bridge between the top medical floors of Tower One and their quarters in the top floor of Tower Two, and they had not been seen scurrying with mismatched buttons and flushed faces.

What had then gone on in their bedroom had been anything but hurried. Watching Scully drift to sleep had caused something inside him to hurt and instead of falling asleep with her he had forced himself to the warm safety of the shower. A part of him knew nothing had happened which had not happened before. As a psychologist he understood her shame, her desire to apologise, to reassure him that she loved him, and he knew he had those same cravings. But as her partner he was having difficulty reconciling her mood swings. Was it depression? He did not think so. They had just bestowed what felt like hours of attention and affection on each other and when she had fallen asleep she had been smiling softly to herself.

If she was not depressed, Mulder could only assume she was confused, and he understood why. He was confused too. He had experienced various levels of confusion since the invasion, and they all seemed to be broken up by something happening with Scully. Maybe they were also seeking some kind of reassurance. A year of work had finally paid off and their first attempt to destroy the supersoldiers was near. Imminent, even. That was frightening and exciting, but neither of them knew what would happen after that.

"Mulder?" Scully asked, her voice cutting through his thoughts. He saw her naked body through the wet, steamy shower glass and he knew she would be able to tell he was not standing underneath the water, but leaning against the wall. "Mulder you've been in here a long time," she continued gently, opening the door and peeking warily inside, searching his half-lidded brown eyes with her wide, probing blue ones. "Is everything okay?" she asked.

"Our lives aren't anything like I wanted," he stated sadly. Scully's mouth parted in surprise. That comment she had not been expecting. "I wish we could have done it earlier, before all this, like in the eighteen hundreds, or the twenties. It might not have ended up like this."

"Maybe," she agreed seriously, frowning at him with concern. "But I might have died in childbirth, or you might have been killed in the war. And how do you know we haven't done those things, Mulder? How do you know that never happened for us? How do you know that this isn't the last thing we have to do before it's all over? Monica once told me that one of my numerology numbers was a nine. She said...that it meant I had evolved through all the other numbers, that I'd come full circle to realise this life was only part of a larger whole. And when she told me that I thought of you and us and I realised it was true.

"Maybe a part of these breakdowns I have is me accepting that I believe within myself that what she said is true, that this is our end, that there will be no more for us here, but it doesn't make us less complete. It doesn't change how I feel about you, or God, or myself. It's just upsetting because I know in this life I wanted so much more with you than what I got, but that in itself is so selfish because I could have lost you a hundred times since I met you, and somehow we held on. Somehow we moved forward, as you said. And so all we can really do is cherish the time left that we have together in this world, however long that is, no matter what is in store for us after we die. The only comfort I can find in this whole situation is that in the present I have you, and when it's over, somehow I will still have you. Now are you going to have a shower or just stand there? Because if you're not using the hot water, can I?"

Mulder smiled widely and gestured for her to be his guest and step inside. She giggled, opening the door and blushing when he reached for her bruised upper arm to make sure she did not slip on the wet tiles.

"And how long did it take to rationalise what happened yesterday into that lovely and sensible summary?"

"From the time you last came inside me to the time I opened my mouth to say something I hoped would be the right thing to say." Mulder grinned, stepping under the water and wrapping his arms around her waist for a hug.

"It was the right thing to say," he whispered, delighted to hear her humming happily against his chest and feel her hands smoothing over his lower back in soothing circles. "Dana," he continued thoughtfully as the embrace continued, still and patient and calming. "What do you want to do before you die?" He felt her smile against his chest and could picture the smug smirk. "I mean besides me," he added. She laughed loudly, stepping back so she could look up at him without getting a face full of water.

"Anything?" she asked hopefully. He nodded. "What do you want to do?"

"I asked you first, cheater," he laughed, tickling her ribs briefly.

"Okay," she sighed, stretching up dangerously onto her tiptoes to lay her arms around his shoulders. He stooped to hold her, not wanting either of them to fall in the shower. They were getting old, but they were not yet that old. Thank Christ, he thought to himself with a smile. "I...want to go sailing again," she answered. "I want to see a real sunset again, and watch the sun rise. I...want to see everything that is here exist in nature. I don't want to see flowers grown in genetically engineered nurseries; I want to see them coming up out of the soil. I want to sit under a big, old tree and have a picnic. I...want to swim in the ocean and feel rain on my skin and...I want put on an expensive dress and go dancing."

"Is that all?" Mulder asked, raising his eyebrows arrogantly. She rolled her eyes. "You know what I've been thinking?" he asked. She shook her head and stared at him hopefully as he ran his fingers through her loose, knotted hair. "I've been thinking I want to run away with you."

"Why, Fox Mulder," she taunted in a distinctly southern accent with all the skill and ease of an accomplished actress. She even tilted her head just right, her expression innocent and naive but for the upwards pull of her lips, which was single-mindedly seductive and enticing. "You wouldn't be tryin' to get an honourable girl like me into trouble, would you?"

"Agent Scully, as much trouble as I can, ever since I met you," he replied with a grin. She flashed him one of her own, wide grins, and his heart soared. He smirked daringly. "Game?"


	7. Chapter 7

Seven

Shannon was not surprised they had chosen a night of the new moon to act. The sky was darker than usual, and even the stars shone more dully. From the safety of the Hawaiin coast, she could see very little, but beside her Ted was also watching, and together she knew they would see enough. They were relaxed, sitting at the top of a tall sand dune on a hill that had previously been covered in lush greenery. Ted had already downloaded and copied all the data from the supersoldier computer systems before Shannon had blown them up. There was nothing left to do but wait.

Since West Africa, Shannon had quickly and methodically destroyed complexes in Brazil, Argentina, Tanzania and Indonesia. She had not been able to kill any supersoldiers, obviously, but she had succeeded in destroying some of their dormitory residences, and most of all their known research complexes. She knew she had killed a large number of human military personnel, all American, who had scattered around the world after West Africa in an effort to avoid detection. Thanks to Ted and Shannon's ability to quickly cover vast distances their attempts had been useless. They had all been involved with the program, and she had known most of them personally at some stage of her life, but she felt no guilt or remorse at their deaths.

Finally it was time for it all to end. Shannon was not sure how she felt about being dragged to Hawaii by Ted. If she did not die at the hands of the aliens, she could never die. She could be forced to sit by and watch her friends get old and sick. They would all die eventually, and she was not sure if she wanted to be the one left behind. And yet if she did go back and allow herself to feel again, would she age? Would she eventually make herself mortal again? Was that even possible? Ted had not been able to tell her, nobody had. But there were scars on her arm to prove to herself that her cells were still capable of listening to her, so maybe there was hope for a normal life.

"I don't know how we're going to see anything from all the way over here," she mumbled. "The earth is curved, you know."

"Very funny," Ted chuckled, adjusting his glasses and running his hands through his long, brown hair. He had let it grow, and it hung in loose curls around his shoulders. He still looked typically daggy, and Shannon had to keep reminding herself he was not human. He played his part so well, even when he was just with her. "And they can't fight back?" he asked.

"They were using all available power to manage their research and reproduction facilities and to communicate with each other. You know that. Don't be nervous. Any weapons the supersoldiers have are primitive, and if they were never taught how to use them by human trainers before I killed them all, then they don't have much more than their bare hands."

"Excellent," Ted assured her with a wide grin. Shannon grunted. She was content to wait in silence. She was not sure what they were waiting for, but she figured it was a light signal of some kind. Remembering the day Sarah had gone blind and how distressed she and Walter had been, Shannon was glad she didn't even need sunglasses.

xxx 

Scully rapped her knuckles against the edge of the mess hall when she found Eddie alone there, pouring over a research book on chemistry.

"Shouldn't you know that?" she asked as he looked up. He smiled at her. Scully was pretty sure he knew she hadn't been herself for a while, and it had not been too many days since she had cried in his arms, but he had not said anything to her since. He had said nothing about her mini-breakdown. He had asked her nothing personal. They had all been busy, pulling long days to try to mass produce the liquid which would be used to defeat the supersoldiers.

Now that it was done, they had scattered, all eager for some alone time out of each other's company. Michael was presumably in contact with his superiors and arranging to transport the magnetic ferrofluid to wherever it was meant to be. Mulder had followed her to their quarters and they had quietly spoken before he fell asleep, and Scully was not surprised to have found Eddie with his nose buried in a book that by his standards should have been basic first-year science.

"I like to keep refreshed of the old stuff," he answered simply, shrugging. "So, excited?"

"Not really," she admitted with a frown. "Can we talk?"

"Uh-oh," Eddie sang with a laugh. "Knowledge tells me that's a loaded question, Dana. Take a seat, girl. Everyone else is asleep so it's private here. What's up?"

"Mulder would have been here but he was exhausted," Scully began as she took a seat opposite him and folded her hands calmly on top of the table. "What's going to happen to-"

Scully's words were silenced when she felt the earth shake. She and Eddie stared at each other in shock and she gripped the edge of the table as it moved side to side just as everything else around her was. Alarms began blaring, deafening in their pitch and volume. She resisted the urge to dive underneath the small table. Scully had only experienced one other earthquake and she had been very young. Her heart skipped a beat in fear as she risked a look upwards. They were at the very bottom of Tower Two, hundreds of metres below the surface. She couldn't remember whether Antarctica was earthquake prone. She seriously doubted it.

Frozen to her seat in surprise and fear, she did not move until Eddie hurried around the table and pulled her to her feet. His fingers dug into the healing bruises Mulder had forced upon her and his touch stung her enough to cause her wide eyes to look into his. It was as though he knew where her bruises were, she realised, even though she had never shown or told him.

"We need to get out of here," Eddie told her seriously. Even though the alarms were loud, he did not yell and she heard him perfectly, her shock enclosing them in a cone of panicked silence. She nodded, swallowing though her throat and mouth was dry.

"Mulder-"

"Come on," he urged, gripping her hand and tugging her out of the mess hall as the alarms continued. Scully thought for a moment he would be taking her up the stairs, the escalators and elevator obviously not safe, but when she looked upwards and saw all the residents already panicking on the stairs, she realised they would be taking the dangerous way up. Oh well, she thought resolutely. She would take the elevator in an earthquake and see what happened. She had done more stupid things with or for Mulder in her time.

"Why are they all starting to run down?" Eddie asked once they were in the elevator. Scully had her eyes closed and a hand bracing against the clear glass of the elevator as it rose more rapidly than any elevator she had ever been in before. She had never been motion sick until she had ridden the complex's elevators. Mulder had almost passed out, and she knew if she did not get to the top fast and regather her equilibrium she would be violently ill.

"They're running down because most of our office buildings were built above ground and it's our instinct to evacuate down, not up. No matter how long they've been here, in an emergency situation not everyone will be able to defeat that instinct with rational thought. Are we nearly there?"

As soon as the words were out of her mouth Eddie had an arm around her waist and was pulling her forward onto the upper hallway. It was still shaking and the rumbling was more pronounced closer to the surface. Scully wasn't sure if that was right. She could not think clearly, her nausea from the elevator forcing her to again clutch at the wall for balance as she and Eddie hurried to the entrance to her quarters.

"Mulder!" Eddie shouted as Scully opened the door with her palm print and allowed them entry. The living room was dark and empty. The couch was jittering across the floor and the water in the fish tank and the fish were sloshing uncontrollably. Panic for Mulder's safety quickly helped overcome any nausea as Scully looked at the empty living room. Had he been going downstairs while she'd been going up with her eyes closed, she wondered?

"Mulder!" she shouted desperately, hurrying to the bedroom as the lights came on. She would laugh about it if they survived, but she felt no relief or humour at the fact that he was still comfortably asleep despite the blare of the alarm. She jumped onto the quivering bed and began shaking his shoulder as hard as she could with both hands.

"Wha-" Mulder gasped and sat upright as soon as he was pulled from his deep sleep and registered the alarm, the vibrating bed and Scully's nails digging into him. At first he had thought they were back on the X Files in another crummy motel whose only saving grace was the beds' 'Magic Fingers', the coin operated vibrating beds they had always joked about but secretly loved. But as he looked around he realised their entire room was moving. Scully took his face in both hands and brought his eyes to hers, holding them both as still as possible.

"Come with me," she urged. He nodded, scrambling off the bed with her. Scully stood by and watched him pause only to hurriedly swipe their photos off their side table and collect her diaries from the top drawer. She smiled at him but it was tempered by impatience. Eddie was waiting in the living room when they returned, watching the fish in their large aquarium.

"Where's Michael?" Mulder asked as they followed Eddie at a jogging pace out of the quarters, leaving the door open. They headed straight for the bridge to Tower One and crossed it onto the lower levels of Scully's medical offices, the ones accessible to the public.

"Waiting for us," Eddie called behind him, leading them up the stairs to the restricted area and reaching back to drag Scully forward to get them in. The biological scan required by her had never taken so long, Mulder thought desperately, shifting his weight from side to side as the rumbling and shaking around them began to drown out the wail of the emergency sirens.

"What now?" Scully asked once they were inside the research lab. She held Mulder's hand and braced herself against the large bench as Eddie began searching through the everyday chemicals stored in a cabinet in the room. The bottles were clanging against one another in their shelves and Eddie did not answer her, too busy reading all their labels as they struggled to evade his grasp as the result of the constant movement of the walls, ceiling and floors.

"Eddie there's no time!" Mulder exclaimed, still holding the last remaining evidence of their past in his free hand, their photos and diaries. "We have to get out of here!"

"We gotta go!" Michael announced from behind them, rushing in through the open door and opening the secure storage room with just a touch of his hand. So they COULD get in, Mulder realised smugly. He knew beside him Scully's mouth had dropped open in surprise. He leant down close to her ear so that he could whisper.

"Restricted access my butt," he mumbled. She smirked and squeezed his fingers, but they were both distracted when Eddie produced a bottle and reached for some paper towelling.

"What is that?" Scully asked as he soaked the paper towels in the clear liquid. A fear that had nothing to do with the fact they were stuck underground in the middle of an Antarctic earthquake began to bubble in her stomach, and it grew when he failed to answer. Eddie finished soaking the paper towel and put the bottle back in the cabinet. He then retrieved the paper which had not moved around much on the shuddering bench.

As he strode towards them, Scully took a step back and placed herself deliberately and defensively between Eddie and Mulder.

"What is that?" she repeated, yelling to be heard over the alarms and the sound of the shaking structure. "Eddie! Answer me dammit!"

"Here," he stated once he stopped a metre from them. "If you don't put these over your nose and mouth now, we'll do it for you. We're going for a ride."

"WHAT IS IT?" Scully screamed angrily. She was not sucking in anything unless he told her.

"Diethyl ether." She frowned with concern at the soaked paper in his hands. She knew diethyl ether would knock them out. She suddenly was not sure whether she would escape the earthquake, or be buried alive amidst it when the complex collapsed. "We don't have time, Dana. You do it or we'll do it for you. I gave Mulder a concussion with what to me was a gentle toss; I can overpower you both without raising a sweat. Make it easy for me, hon."

"Would you lot hurry the hell up!" Michael exclaimed, quickly analysing the situation and the body language of the room's occupants. Without hesitating, he walked over to Mulder and Scully. His fingers wrapped around Scully's ponytail and she screamed as he dragged her in one direction. Mulder attempted to hold onto her and put himself between them. She felt as if she was being scalped in the tug-of-war and it hurt so much all she wanted was to be released.

"Let me GO!" she yelled, fighting Mulder with one hand and Michael with the other. Mulder let her go as she requested and she briefly thought how brave that was of him, and Michael threw her to the floor, straddling her hips and holding her shoulders down so that she couldn't struggle. Eddie was right. They could overpower them both. Michael was exceptionally strong for such a comparably young alien. When he took one of the towels from Eddie and placed it firmly over her nose and mouth she had no choice but to breathe in as he leered at her. She turned her eyes away, searching for the man who she had devoted her adult life to.

The last thing she felt before she passed out was Mulder taking her hand, and the last thing she saw was him kneeling beside her, voluntarily putting his own ether-soaked paper towel over his own face. His probing, wise and gentle eyes never left hers. It is okay, his expression told her. She knew he wanted her not to fight. She wanted to tell him that she knew why he was giving in so easily; if they were going to be killed in the earthquake or by aliens, they wanted to be killed together. But she did not have the strength to tell him that she understood, and her eyes were soon drawn shut by the general anaesthetic she knew she had just inhaled.

She could only hope that he quickly followed her into the darkness.

xxx 

"JOHN!" Gibson shouted as he ran towards the hospital in the dark. His feet tripped as he hurried along the uneven ground but never completely lost his balance and he kept moving. His glasses were smeared with water which had been falling for days in a constant drizzle. There was a storm coming, but not just a storm, and Gibson needed to find the Captain. At the low rumble of approaching thunder everyone had been ordered to shelter in their homes. Gibson had taken Sarah home while Skinner and John patrolled the streets, but upon Skinner's return Gibson had needed to find John, and Skinner's guess had not surprised him.

In the past week, ten people had died of cholera and another five were still ill. Immediately after Xilona's diagnosis of the first fatality, all pregnant women and young children had been sequestered within their family homes. Monica had been sequestered in the hospital room where she had spent the majority of the past two months throwing up for the better part of most days. John and Xilona were taking no chances, and Gibson knew his older friend was almost constantly dehydrated already. Any little bug and John would almost certainly lose his wife. Gibson knew Monica hated the special treatment but she was comfortable in the hospital, and since the rain their wrecked house had been leaking. John slept with her most nights, and Nicky lived in the hospital with her. They had basically moved in there.

Gibson knew that was where John would have gone. In the dark, he almost crashed into the figure just outside the hospital entrance. The two men pulled apart from each other with a jolt, everybody was nervous about the spread of disease and nobody was touching anybody else. With less than a thousand colonists, every person was aware of the significance of their life, and nobody wanted to be the next to get sick.

"Hey!" John exclaimed angrily at the contact. Gibson heaved a sigh of relief and gripped his arm. John realised who it was by Gibson's size and grip and looked downwards, rain falling between them heavier than it had for a while. "Gibson, was that you callin' me?"

"Yeah," he huffed. "We have to go."

"What do you mean go?" he asked. "Go where?"

"Away from here!" Gibson exclaimed. "They're coming TONIGHT!"

"Who?"

"The rest, it's starting tonight. Remember what Shannon told us? If there's an earthquake abandon your post and get your family out. That's what I'm doing. Get Monica and Nicky and their things and we have to go up into the mountain. I've already told Skinner and Sarah to get as much food and water together as they can and they're coming with us. They're probably waiting."

"Well we should warn the others, we-"

"No," Gibson insisted firmly. "There's no time. They'll be okay, I think, but I can't risk it."

"It's the wet season," John defended. "Where the hell are we meant to go in this weather? In the middle of a thunderstorm?"

"It's not a thunderstorm," Gibson replied. "That's just what it looks like. We have to get to high road; it's not that far-"

"Gibson, Monica is four months pregnant. Do you 'remember' what it was like for her the last time? Why panic her when no supersoldier can get to us here?"

"We'll be fine against the supersoldiers," Gibson assured him. "It's not them I'm worried about. Come on John, we can't wait around here okay? You've got the benefit of having me here as your advanced warning system and I'm TELLING you that we have to go NOW. Just get Monica OUT of the hospital!"

"Okay, okay," John exclaimed, holding up his hands in surrender. "I'll be five minutes." Gibson exhaled sharply and nodded, shooing him away with a flutter of his hands.

John increased his stride once he passed through the hospital doors. Torches lit by fire lined the hallway but the rooms would be in darkness. John was grateful Xilona or Nathan did not cross his path as he made his way to Monica's room at the back end of the clinic. His hands were in his pockets so that he did not have to touch anything, and he pushed Monica's hospital door open with his elbow.

"You awake?" he asked softly into the darkness. He could see her propped up on her pillows with her knees up so was not surprised when she said that she was. John could hear the soft sleeping sounds of his son in the crib beside her and he hurried forward, removing his hands from his pockets and reaching for her hand. "I was just coming to see you for the night," he hurriedly explained. "There's a thunderstorm coming-"

"I know, I heard the thunder. Nice to be inside isn't it?" she asked happily, grinning. John only sighed and her smile disappeared, replaced by a concerned frown. "John?"

"Gibson just caught me outside. He's adamant I remove you and Nicky from here right away and that we go with him, Skinner and Sarah up onto Yungas Road before the storm hits. He implied it was what Shannon mentioned to me before we left, and he said the war was starting, and that he wanted us to be safe. I told him I would come in here and get you and Nicky, and Shannon and Sarah are collecting supplies, and I think we have to trust him, Mon."

"John, I know I complain about being locked down in this hospital," she whispered. "But I couldn't walk a kilometre let alone uphill onto that really, really high road."

"I know baby," he whispered. "I'll help, just like last time. I think we have to hurry though."

"Nicky will get all wet."

"We'll wrap him in a blanket and keep him close," John promised, pulling her blankets down and helping her swing her legs over the side. She looked thin, he reminded himself quickly. She had lost a lot of weight in the past few months throwing up every day.

They were all becoming increasingly worried about her nutrition. She had been living off vending machine sports drinks. She did not have access to the pre-natal vitamins she'd had with her the first time. They could not simply go and loot a supermarket for everything she needed to try to swallow to keep her healthy. She was not used to the local conditions the way the other pregnant women were. She had started mentioning offhandedly about not getting any milk and he knew she was secretly as worried as him.

"Are we coming back?" Monica asked as she looked around for some clothes and pulled on a pair of jeans, a singlet top and a thick jumper that was two sizes too big for her. For the moment, anyway, he thought.

"I dunno," he mumbled. "Gibson's concerned for our safety here so I don't know what's gonna happen, Mon. I just...think that he came all that way to warn us the first time. He's doing it again and I think we should go with him."

"Can you carry the baby?" she asked, her voice shaking as she brushed her hands down her waist and over her hips, nervous and frightened by the urgency in his voice. It sounded to her like Gibson had been panicking. Gibson only ever panicked when the situation was desperately serious. Watching John carefully lift his son and search for the bag of nappies and blankets and toys they had transferred from their home to the hospital, Monica made the decision to trust her husband's instincts. She knew they were putting their faith in Gibson again, but she did not mind giving the young man that sort of control. He handled it well.

John whisked his wife and son out of the small clinic without being seen. All the cholera patients were being kept in a separate wing away from the main entrance and that was where Xilona and Nathan would be. They lived there with their spouses, who were daring and committed enough to assist the doctors in nursing. So far neither doctor had gotten sick, but John suspected it would only be a matter of time.

That is if they had any real time left, he realised.

Gibson met them outside the entrance and John pulled Nicky's blanket up around his head as they were immediately drenched by the heavy rain. The thunder was getting louder but there was no lightning and John thought that was odd. Nicky started crying as Gibson led them quickly away. He obviously did not want anybody to find them fleeing. It would cause a mass panic and maybe there was no time to explain.

Skinner and Sarah were waiting on the outskirts of the colony. Skinner had a large backpack on and Sarah's arms were bundled with tarpaulin and plastic sheeting.

"They're all here," Skinner stated when he saw Gibson approaching with two adult shadows. Sarah handed her uncle one of the plastic sheets and he walked forward to Monica, greeting her with a warm smile and helping to wrap it over her head and around her shoulders. "Nice night for a day trip out of that hospital you're stuck in," he teased. She laughed, barely able to make his face out in the night and amidst the heavy rain.

"You might not think it's so nice when I pass out if I don't sit down again soon," she countered. "I haven't walked more than a few hundred metres at a time in months."

"I can carry you if need be," Skinner promised her, squeezing her shoulder affectionately. "And Nicky?"

"I'm not putting plastic over him," John insisted, cradling his son's head of curly, dark brown hair as he fussed on his father's hip. "The blanket will do. He'll be all right. There are some places we can shelter along the road, I mean if it's safe to stop. I don't know. Gibson-"

"Just everyone follow me," he added seriously, taking the lead. "And I know it's dark and you all can barely see in front of you, but we have to all stick together and try to move fast. Monica, I know you're not confident but if you don't speak up for yourself I will, and you'll end up being carried either way so just...try to give me some warning if you're gonna faint."

"I'll try," she promised, swallowing heavily as all the blood rushed from her head with just the first few steps. She reached for John. On the dark, uneven ground her balance was shot.

"Walter!" John called. Skinner turned and got an arm around Monica's back before she dropped. John watched with wide, blue eyes as Skinner settled Monica in his strong arms. She was as tall as Skinner but much thinner, and even though Skinner had lost some muscle from all the extended walking they had done he was able to carry her with the bag still on his back. "Monica," John pleaded urgently, Nicky crying in his arms. "Mon, can you hear me?"

"Mm, yeah," she mumbled.

"She's out to it," Skinner confirmed with a sigh as John tilted her head towards Skinner's chest so the rain was not falling directly on her face. "Gibson you take Sarah in front with you. John, you're at the rear. Mon and I will head up the middle so we don't fall behind. If it gets too steep I might need to rouse her."

"The rain will keep her up," Gibson promised. "This is what she was like some days in the desert," he explained to Skinner and Sarah. "She would be so tired she went to sleep right under the bright sun and we would cover her face in a t-shirt and then a hat when we had them and she was just really, really sick."

"If I was that sick the first time I'm not sure I'd want to do it again," Sarah mumbled to him. Gibson chuckled and wrapped his hand around her elbow to help guide her along faster.

"I don't think this one was so well thought out," he whispered humorously. Sarah giggled.

The rain got heavier as they walked and despite the plastic Sarah had passed around they were all soaking before Gibson allowed them to stop under a meagre overhang of the thick vegetation above and below them. The road was cut around the side of the mountain, the cliff was sheer and a fall equalled near-certain death.

"Is this the 'shelter' you mentioned John?" Sarah asked as they huddled. The rain was coming straight down, which was a plus in that wind was not pushing it into their faces even so high up, but it would have been preferable if the wind was blowing it away from them. The shelter might have meant more then.

Skinner lowered Monica to sit against the side of the cliff and sheltered her with the dripping plastic, tapping her cheek a few times to get her to focus on him. John watched on cautiously, holding Nicky away from the rain and sheltering him as best he could.

"Are you going to be sick, Monica?" Skinner asked seriously. "Gibson's let us stop for a bit."

"I haven't eaten anything all day," she admitted. "I can't be sick, but don't try to feed me otherwise I will be."

"Gibson, we need to get back," John mumbled, fear shaking his voice. "She needs-"

"We're staying," Gibson declared. "We need to get further away though-" A loud clap of thunder sounded directly overhead and he looked around urgently before pointing into the distance where a light was growing. "Look!" he declared. John and Skinner turned to look, but Sarah's eyes were unseeing and Monica's were tired. There was a purple tinge to the sky in the distance through the rain, as though the clouds were being pushed away by the moon or a small sun.

"Um, Gibson, I'm sure whatever you're looking at is really grand," Sarah stated suddenly. "And I know I'm blind, but it's been raining for a while and we're on a dirt path on the side of a mountain, right?"

"Yeah, so?" Skinner asked.

"Ever think about possible landslides?" she prompted. "I mean uh...should we 'really' be stopping underneath an overhang when if there are trees it means there is...wet muddy soil?"

"WHAT?" Monica exclaimed, opening her eyes and scrambling to her feet, finally looking upwards at where they were and where they had stopped. "Oh my God, where the hell are we?" Skinner laughed at her as she looked around frantically for Nicky. She was relieved to see him still in John's arms, transfixed by the light in the east sky. "Gibson-"

"Shh, look!" he urged. Monica stepped forward and reached for John's jumper, pulling him back a step, not wanting them standing too close to the edge. He hadn't been, not really, but it was such a narrow road she did not want to take any risks, and she suddenly did not want to be so high up in the middle of a thunderstorm in the heavy rain.

"John I don't like this," she hissed, unable to stop the tremor in her voice. "Honey, I-"

"It's okay Monica," Gibson interrupted seriously. "I brought you up here to protect you."

"I appreciate that Gibson," Monica replied. "But you can't hear mudslides coming."

"Can we keep walking?" Skinner suggested. "It will take our minds off it and maybe we'll have less chance of running into one. Are you at least able to tell us 'why' we're up here? We all trust you Gibson, but maybe a little explanation-"

"Over there," Gibson stated. "That light, it's an alien craft coming to destroy the supersoldiers."

"You can read their minds from this far away?" John asked incredulously.

"They're different to humans," he explained. "I can hear them further. Like on a different frequency. We can communicate over really long distances."

"We?" Sarah asked softly. "You can uh, communicate with them?"

"In my head," Gibson confirmed. "Sometimes I've chosen not to, but...I know what their orders are."

"To destroy the supersoldiers," John stated. "I'd like to know how-"

"Well I only know what they're thinking and what they're thinking is that they are gonna make it rain. They know where the supersoldiers are. They have exact locations."

"How?" Sarah asked.

"Shannon," Skinner replied with a sigh. "She was working with them."

"The man we went to see in the complex that day Scully was all black, he was an alien," Gibson confirmed. "They got wind of her differences and sought her out to help them. When they realised they could have Mulder and Scully at their complex they jumped at the idea. This man, Ted, he knew there was another alien hiding there that would really like to spend time with them and get their ideas."

"Hang on, aliens in Antarctica?" Monica asked. "I thought it was meant to be 'neutral'?"

"Mulder and Scully weren't in any danger. As far as Ted was concerned, he was excited. He knew their names. He knows a lot about humans. The alien in Antarctica he wanted them to meet was his mentor, sort of. On gut instinct alone I'm going to say this treatment for the supersoldiers has been helped along by two of the humans that knew the most about them."

"But they never needed them," John replied with a concerned grimace. "If they had a guy on the inside of the supersoldier program the whole time he would have known all about their weakness. Maybe Shannon was useful because she could get around fast and do risky stuff, but information-gatherin' shouldn't have been a problem. If the aliens were using them-"

"Mulder and Scully were always intended to be with us," Gibson assured him. "There's no deceit involved here. Because of Scully's medical condition they couldn't come here-"

"It's a stupid rule," Skinner growled. "Nobody here even cares."

"This was just a way to keep them safe. But that's not why we're up here."

"I didn't think it was just for a light show," John conceded. "Not the way you barrelled into me earlier. What's goin' on? Is the colony in some danger?"

"Their orders are to destroy the supersoldiers, and if they are successful...to continue harvesting resources in the south."

"What? No!" Skinner exclaimed angrily. "Why?"

"In English, they're worried about a plague that has stopped them reproducing. They're desperate to find a cure somewhere in the earth. Early forms of their life existed here once."

"Doesn't mean you have to take everything away without even knowing if it's worth it," Skinner argued. "Just destroy an entire planet on a hope!"

"We should be down there," John mumbled, glancing back into the darkness the way they had come. The purple light in the distance had not moved, but it had gotten brighter, as though whatever sort of craft it was, it was moving closer. Not that anything about the light looked like a craft. It looked like a gas or some sort of atmosphere.

"No, we can't," Gibson insisted. "Shannon told us to get to safety and stick together when this happened. She didn't really know what form it would take, but this is what she meant. I know it. She just didn't want to say, 'when the aliens come back for the south', because she did not want us to feel helpless."

"But how the hell are we going to get out of here?" John exclaimed. "If you haven't noticed, we're in the middle of the Bolivian Andes! None of us can make it through this rainforest."

"They cleared the north in a month," Gibson stated seriously. "If we push it and we're lucky, we can reach the equator by then. We got in here. We can get out again."

"Gibson," Monica whispered. "I'm not sure I-" He turned to her in the dark, hands on hips.

"Yes, you can make it," he insisted. "You can do anything you want."

"Is there any point?" she asked desperately. "Gibson I know you're trying to save our lives, and we are all grateful for that, but is there ANY point?"

"We need to get to Ecuador," he repeated. "It's not over yet. I promise." Monica covered her mouth with her hand and nodded emotionally. Everybody was silent for a long time, contemplating whether or not it really was worth another trek, if they were all going to die.

"Let's go," Skinner mumbled after several minutes. "We came this far."


	8. Chapter 8

Eight

Mulder woke up with the worst headache he'd had since his concussion brought about by Eddie's 'gentle shove'. There was a throbbing pain just behind his eyes, and he knew it was different and worse than the dehydration headaches he had suffered in the desert. Then again, he thought, perhaps he was not as badly injured as it seemed. He could still think clearly despite the pain; he was not confused or dazed like he had been after hitting his head and regaining consciousness beside Scully after that day in Antarctica he would rather forget.

Scully. Mulder swallowed a groan as he struggled to open his eyes, not sure where Scully was. He tried to remember what had happened before he had gone to sleep which could have caused such an insistent, agonizing pain in his head. Antarctica, he thought. He had gone to his home with Scully there in the second tower, and they had talked about asking Eddie if they could leave once the supersoldiers no longer controlled who got into the human colonies, or if people at the processing centres could be persuaded to let in another doctor. Mulder had crawled into bed at some point and all he remembered after that was Scully kissing him on the forehead and telling him she would handle it, and to go to sleep.

So he had and then he had woken up with her over him, shaking him, and she had not been the only person or thing shaking him. The whole complex had been trembling. An earthquake, he supposed, though Antarctica was not known for tectonic shifts. It was not exactly the Californian San Andreas.

As Mulder ran through the events that followed in his mind he realised why his head hurt so much. He had inhaled something to knock him out. Ether? He was not sure he remembered clearly. He had thought ether was a solvent. Scully had lost consciousness before him, he remembered her hand going slack in his, and then he had succumbed. Had he fallen? He thought he had been kneeling. His headache was probably from hitting his head on the hard floor as well as the liquid solvent that had knocked him out for God-only-knew how long.

As he stared upwards, he discovered he was in the dark. He knew he was lying on his back and a tilt of his hips told him he was on a mattress. He was pretty sure there was a pillow under his head, but it was hard to feel anything back there when the pain in the front was so distracting. He was pleasantly warm, and he felt like something was holding him down, but he did not have the strength to investigate. His arms felt almost numb, but not from cold.

Mulder fell quickly back to sleep, his last reassuring thought being that if he was really in bed, he probably was not buried under Antarctica in the wake of the earthquake.

He woke again hours later only to discover his headache was not as bad as it had been. Suddenly it felt more like the dehydration headaches he had experienced more than a year previously. In other words, he could deal. He felt like he had a major hangover. But he could wiggle his fingers and move his hands, so he was reassured that whatever was wrong with him was simply the after-effects of whatever had been used to knock him out.

He was even more relieved when he turned his head sideways to see a crop of orange hair on the pillow beside him. The bed was not very big, perhaps a small double. Scully was on her side turned away from him, facing the wall which the bed was pressed up against. He rolled onto his side with a groan and rested his large hand on the rise of her hip under the sheet which covered them, but she did not stir. He watched her torso moving with every breath and pressed his lips together when another gentle squeeze of her hip yielded no results.

"Scully," he mumbled, his voice low and croaky. Nothing. She was out, he realised. Worry began to stir in his stomach because he was awake and she wasn't, but he tempered it with what he knew Scully would have said when presented with such a situation. They had inhaled approximately the same amount of some kind of ether, but they were certainly not the same size. She was tiny compared to him, nicely soft and curved but compared to him, petite. So it was likely she would take longer to sleep off the effects of the drug they had been given.

That only served to reassure him until he began wondering how easy it would be to overdose on any type of ether, and whether the type they had been given had been pure or in a solvent form with other added chemicals, and whether she could have had a reaction to one of them.

Mulder pushed himself up to sitting in the bed, ignoring the headache as best he could, and leant over her. Her hair was out and incredibly tangled, and he reached over to carefully draw it away from her face. Her cheeks were flushed but she seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Mulder sighed. He knew there was nothing he could do until she woke, and he needed a drink and to use the bathroom, so he would have to leave her to investigate where they were.

It was then Mulder realised that he could 'see'. When he had woken up the first time it had been dark, as though night, and suddenly it was light. It was not the same light as in the complex in Antarctica. It seemed brighter somehow, or more real. He turned his back on Scully as quickly as he could and surveyed his surroundings.

He gasped when he saw their matching backpacks sitting against the cement wall directly opposite their bed, purple for Mulder and orange for Scully. They looked exactly as Mulder remembered leaving them, partially open and filled with their old clothes and toiletries. He risked tilting his head backwards slightly so that he could look upwards to where he expected there to be a window. A small, rectangular window with thick glass was filled with the bright blue of the outside sky, and tears stung Mulder's eyes when he realised they were back.

Or had they ever left?

No, no, they were definitely back. Surely he could not have hallucinated a year of their lives. He risked a glance at Scully, and content that she was deeply asleep, he stood and hurried out of the open door towards where he remembered the bathrooms to be. After relieving himself and taking a hot shower, he dried himself with the towel hung on the rung he had once claimed as his, and hurried back to their 'cell' with the white towel wrapped around his hips and his clothes bundled in his arms. He guessed he had been gone no more than ten minutes, and he knelt at their backpacks on the floor to look for clothing.

He remembered in the bottom of his bag he had kept a clean t-shirt that had never been worn. It was white and perhaps a little thin but he pulled it on happily anyway, looking through his old toiletries. He had not seen his brand name deodorant since leaving. What they had been provided with in Antarctica had worked, but Mulder had used the same brand nearly all his life. Holding the bottle again filled him with nostalgia and made him smile.

After again retreating to the communal-designed bathroom and shower facility to shave, he finally returned to their bed and rolled Scully onto her back so he could get a better look at her and hopefully try to rouse her. He HAD to show her the blue of the sky. He wanted her to see their backpacks. He wanted to show her how somebody had carefully stacked their undamaged photo frames and album and diaries up against the wall just beside them.

"Scully," he urged, shaking her shoulder firmly and resting his other hand against her neck, searching for her pulse. It was steady and strong, but he knew it could be another several hours before she woke. He wanted to go exploring to make sure they were really back at the processing centre on the island, and not just in his open room experiencing some sort of manipulation of the physical world. Scully would be able to tell him. She would just know.

Mulder was about to give up on trying to wake her after a long while of calling her name and shaking, when she groaned. She sounded like she was in as much pain as he had been when he had woken in the middle of the night. He squeezed her shoulder and she groaned louder, regaining consciousness reluctantly, as though she was being dragged awake after a long surgery.

"Wakey-wakey," Mulder sung happily, releasing her shoulder to hold her nearest hand on both of his and bring it to his lips. "I know your head hurts sweetie, so keep your eyes closed because it's bright in here."

"Alive?" Scully asked. "Can't move-"

"I was like that last night," he promised her. "I reckon we got a huge dose of that ether. What is it? I thought it was-"

"Used to be...general...anaesthetic," she hissed, cringing in pain. Her voice probably sounded loud to her ears, he realised, and he remembered to whisper the next time in case his words had also hurt her.

"Oh," he replied softly. "I don't know how long we've been knocked out, but we're alone here for now. It's safe. We're safe. Are you hot, cold? Your cheeks are badly flushed."

"Um...hot," she mumbled, and Mulder lowered the sheet to rest over her hips. He watched her eyelashes flutter as she struggled to wake up. He stroked her bright red cheek gently to both encourage and relax her.

"Take your time. You probably feel like you've been hit on the head with a hammer, cos that's how I felt. It's passing slowly."

"Strong dose," she agreed. "You okay?"

"Bit of a headache still," he conceded. "But I had a shower and a drink and I'm gettin' there."

"Sleep with me more," she urged, flexing her fingers in his hand for the first time, as though she had only just realised she could feel them. Mulder did not need any persuading; as much as he wanted to walk around outside he still felt sluggish and achy and he did not want to walk around alone. He wanted Scully with him to investigate. She was his buddy, he reminded himself as he lay down on top of the sheet, hot from his shower, and pulled Scully into him, rolling her onto her side so that her face was nestled against his neck. She mumbled something he could not understand, and fell quickly asleep. He followed.

xxx 

Scully could not remember a time when she felt as sick as she did when she woke up. She was overheated and clammy, and even before she opened her eyes she knew it was because she was covered in a sheet, wrapped in Mulder's long arms and pressed against his broad, hot chest. The smell of clean but stale cotton assaulted her sensitive nose and she found herself snuggling her face in closer despite the heat of his body. Mulder smelt clean underneath his clothes too, she realised. It was all oddly comforting and reminded her of before the invasion.

He moved as she nuzzled his chest, and she hummed when she felt his fingers tangle in her long, thick hair. Mulder's fingers were gently massaging her scalp but he made no move to talk. She was not sure if he was truly awake. She took a deep breath and evaluated the state of her health as they remained silent.

Symptom number one, Scully had a killer headache. She remembered having a bad headache after her medical test at the processing centre, a result of eye strain and stress and exhaustion, but this seemed different. She knew she was dehydrated but this was no simple dehydration-induced headache. Her nose was also stinging and it was not because of the cotton of Mulder's shirt or the soapy smell of his skin. It was as though she had inhaled-

She HAD inhaled, she remembered quickly. Diethyl ether. And a lot of it. She had passed out quickly on the floor of her research lab in Tower One and Mulder had been holding her hand, and the earth had been shaking.

Her arms and legs felt weak as she moved against Mulder's body, testing her limbs' response to her brain's instructions. Mulder reacted to her movements as naturally as she could have expected, wrapping his other arm around her hips and drawing her to him, slipping his legs around hers until she was confused about where hers actually were. She felt him aroused against her and assumed he had just woken up, and she pressed a gentle kiss to his chest as she smoothed her hand over the thin cotton.

White cotton, she identified as she finally opened her eyes. Her lids felt heavy and it was a struggle to keep them open, and she wanted to lift her head and ask him if he felt as awful as she did, but she was not sure she was strong enough. In a display of telepathy that they often appeared to possess, the hand tangled in her hair pulled back gently to tilt her head up so that she could see him. Or so that he could see her, she realised when she saw the relieved smile on his face and the glimmer of tears in his brown eyes.

"Hi," he greeted softly. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got hit in the head with a hammer," she replied, frowning. The answer sounded familiar but she could not remember saying it previously. Mulder only grinned at her. "You been up long?" she asked.

"Twice before this time. This time I've been up for I suppose only a quarter of an hour, somewhere around there. Not too long. I've just been thinking. I think the headache is just from the drugs. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"Don't think so," she mumbled. "Feel pretty wiped out."

"Thirsty?" Mulder asked. She licked her lips, nodding. "You're still all flushed Dana," he added in a concerned whisper, leaning forward to drag his lips over her cheek. "Been that way for hours now." Scully wasn't sure if he realised it, but kissing her was not going to take away the redness. She smiled, distracted, when she realised he had shaved recently.

"Mm, you're all soapy," she told him happily, wrapping her arms around his waist and hugging him as he rolled onto his back and pulled her half on top of him, tucking her head under his chin and enjoying their closeness. It was not something that had really been happening between them in recent times, not with work in Antarctica so stressful and not with the delicate emotional balance that had come to rest between them. But Mulder was happy with their newfound location and he was just waiting for the right time to share the news with her. Her eyes were fluttering open and shut and he knew she was still probably tired and weak; there was no rush. Hopefully they were in no immediate danger.

"It's late afternoon," he told her, pressing his lips to her temple as she shifted suggestively against him. He was not even sure she was conscious of her actions and they were both not feeling the best, but it was not hard to remember back to what had gone on in that room the last time they had stayed there. Good memories, Mulder recalled with a grin and a silent prayer of thanks for his photographic memory. Scully hummed and allowed him to pull her astride him, but she settled lazily against his chest and he held her like a child not a lover.

"We survived the earthquake," she whispered into his neck.

"Yeah," he promised. "They knocked us out to evacuate us. Sort of like how we got there." She nodded slowly against him, absorbing his words.

"Did we go on the spacecraft again?" she asked innocently.

"I don't know," he replied. Honestly he did not even know what they had gone on the first time. They had both been unconscious then too. "Maybe. We were drugged with the same quantity of ether though, so you take it easy. Don't force yourself up just because I am. It might take a while longer to get through your system. Just rest."

"Mm, kay Fox." Mulder grinned and found the bare skin of her lower back with the hand not holding her head, stroking her back soothingly at the sound of her childlike reply.

"I love you," he hissed, feeling tears sting his eyes at the realisation that though she had just sounded like a sleepy ten year old she was actually over forty, and more than half their lives had passed. Again, not for the first time but for the millionth, he had thought they would die, either in the earthquake or for other sinister purposes while they were unconscious. He could never have guessed they would wake up back at their processing centre. Mulder had no idea what was going on, but as Scully again drifted back to sleep in his arms he wasn't sure he needed to know right away. He was sure when the time came for them to know, they would.

xxx 

The first thing Scully thought when she next woke was about how thirsty she was. It was an unfamiliar feeling. She had not gone thirsty since her time in the desert, when water had been rationed even once Shannon had been towing 'the raft'. And it was not just a little glimmer of thirst that reminded her to drink. What she felt was a life-threatening need for fluid. She groaned, opening her eyes in the dark. She was in a bed. She remembered Mulder beside her, she remembered falling asleep sprawled over him, but he was no longer at her side. The sheet was pulled back and she lifted a hand to the dent of his pillow. Still warm, she realised. Perhaps she had woken because he had gotten out of bed.

Scully suddenly had an intense desire to use the bathroom and decided since she had no idea how long it had been since the last time she probably should not try to hold it. Just one little problem, she realised as she sat up in bed and looked around in the pitch blackness of the room. Where the HELL was she?

She pushed herself to the edge of the bed and her bare feet touched a cold floor, potentially smooth cement. The bed was a double and quite low to the ground but very comfortable. She could not see how far away the opposite wall was, or where the door was. There was a patch of brightness on the floor just in front of her and she followed it upwards until she discovered a tiny window. On the other side there was a lighter kind of darkness. It had an early-hours-of-the-morning feel to it, but Scully had not seen a real morning in more than a year. If it was sky, it was more of a gentle blackness, nearly a purple-navy-gray, and she allowed herself to smile at her little fantasy. Perhaps she was in one of the old Antarctic research stations above-ground and it was approaching a winter daytime.

But that did not make sense, she thought. Just days before the Earthquake it had been light outside, constantly bright and sunny, and she could not have been unconscious for six months. Could she?

She was startled by the sound of bare, padding footsteps on the floor and gasped a little as they jogged towards her and then entered the room.

"You're up!" Mulder exclaimed. He had seen her silhouette in the dark, she assumed.

"Yeah," she whispered. "Where um, I need to use the bathroom."

"Can you walk okay?" he asked, hurrying to her and taking one of her hands, helping her to her feet.

"I haven't tried yet," she admitted, allowing him to wrap an arm around her waist and walk her slowly towards the door like she was an elderly hospital patient only because a part of her actually felt like one. "Mulder-"

"How is your head?" he asked, not allowing her to ask questions.

"Mm, a bit better. I uh, am groggy."

"Hot or cold?" he asked.

"Warmish," she replied. "Why is it warm when the floor is so cold?"

"It's warm outside," he answered. "I'm glad you're up. I've got a surprise for you."

"When did you get up?"

"I woke up for the first time more than twenty-four hours ago," he admitted. "You woke up for the first time yesterday morning, but I'm not sure if you'd remember. Then you woke up again late afternoon, and now it's early morning again, so you've had a fair bit more time to recover, which is good. I haven't left your side for more than a few minutes at a time, I swear. Been kind of drowsy still myself. I didn't realise that ether stuff was so strong."

"They might've given us something else," she mumbled. "Like when they knocked us out on the processing centre to bring us here, and maybe we've been asleep for a long time. I just know if I don't go to the toilet and then drink a large volume of water I'm gonna die." Mulder chuckled, at her unusual exaggeration brought on by the severity of her symptoms and the fact that she obviously still thought they were in Antarctica.

Mulder helped her to the toilet and in a sign of complete acquiescence she did not complain about him keeping her upright while she sat. From experience he knew she probably was in worse shape than she admitted, and the evidence rarely lied. He then insisted she have a warm shower. That she argued about. What she really wanted to do was drink water and go back to sleep, but he promised her it would warm her up and that he needed one too, and she again conceded. Not that Mulder had been game to take no for an answer. When he was supporting half her weight she truly had little choice.

Scully shivered as, after their shower, Mulder wrapped a large towel around her and gathered their clothes. She was amazed by the fact that it was completely dark where they were and he seemed to know instinctively where everything was and where to go. She squinted as she looked around, trying to make out shapes or a light source. She saw very little, and she suspected her vision was still blurred from heavy sleep. Once Mulder had dressed, he helped her redress in the dark and then they walked out of the bathroom area and back down the hallway.

Something in Scully gave her an acute sense of déjà vu but she could not place it, and déjà vu was not a feeling she enjoyed. Usually it was her mind referring her back to something pre-invasion, which made her sad, and as time had gone on the references had become more extreme so that if she tried, anything could remind her of something that had happened in her past. It was not a nice feeling. Déjà vu was only good when the memories were welcome, after all. Scully loved her memories, but she did not love remembering.

"This is very special," Mulder promised softly as he leant her against their bedroom wall and ripped their unused blanket off the bottom of the bed, folding it in his arms. "Come on Scully," he urged kindly as he took one of her arms through his and again began leading her along hallways.

"Mulder where are we going?"

"I wasn't sure you'd be up, so great timing on your part, Doc. We're going to the watch tower, if we can get in. I haven't checked yet because I didn't want to leave you too long in case you woke up in the dark and freaked out. You didn't, did you?"

"No," she promised. "You came back before I could." He chuckled, patting the hand wrapped around his forearm. They were walking slowly, but he could tell she was a lot stronger since her shower. "Mulder can we get water?"

"In the kitchen," he replied. After a few more steps he leant her against a hallway wall and told her to stay. He went inside a nearby doorway for a few minutes and then returned from another dark room with two bottles and a packet of something else.

"What's that?" she asked as he held onto everything and kept walking.

"Another surprise," he teased. "Do you think you can make it up some stairs or should I carry you?"

"I can make it, slowly," she shot back with a grin. "Stairs hey? I thought we were already above the ground."

"Just a few," he underestimated.

Mulder stayed on the outside of the spiral staircase, against the circular brick wall, so that he could support his own weight if he stumbled, and so that if Scully stumbled in his arms he could pull her into him and balance them against something sturdy. But she kept a firm grip on the railing as they ascended and they took one little step at a time, even though in peak fitness Mulder could have jogged up five at a time. Finally they reached the top, and it was everything Mulder remembered and had wanted to see again.

Mulder was not sure what sort of building the processing centre had once been. It looked a lot like some sort of prison, but the doors and windows were not barred, so perhaps it had even been a boarding school. What he called a watch tower might have been an observatory, or a guard post, but what it was to him was a tall, cylindrical tower with a room at the top that looked out across the desert to the ocean in the east, and out over the top of the centre to the sky in the west. There were no trees blocking the view because it had all been excavated by the aliens, but for once Mulder was okay with that; they would only have a better view.

"What do you think Scully?" he asked, excited at the prospect of watching the sun rise right over the Atlantic Ocean. Beside him, Scully let go of his arm and walked forward to stare at the dark water rippling in the distance. There was no glass. They were standing in the open air. The sky was definitely lighter since she had woken. It was lighter because she was above ground, but she was certainly not in Antarctica. She was in the Northern Hemisphere. She could see sand, and even though it was dark, it was a landscape that was burned into her mind's eye. She would see sand when she closed her eyes for the rest of her life.

"Oh my God," she whispered, refocussing on the water and the way the sky was a lighter purple along the horizon.

"I think we have an hour or so before the real show starts," Mulder told her. "This bench looks pretty sturdy. I think we'll be able to sit on it and watch. If we sat on the ground we wouldn't be able to see so-"

"We can stretch out along it," Scully observed, running her hand along the length of the wooden bench that was between her and the open window. It was not too narrow.

Mulder wasted no time in helping her up. She was able to lean against a support beam and Mulder sat opposite her, their knees raised and meeting in the middle. He threw the blanket over them both and enjoyed the look of awe on Scully's face as she stared at the ocean. He'd had a little longer to get used to the idea than her, and he understood was an extreme change it was from Antarctica. They were back in the desert, on their island, and all alone.

"Here," he told her, retrieving one of the bottles from beside him and handing it to her. "That's water, and I also picked up a bottle of warm lemonade for some sugar. So we can have half and half, sound good? And I got us a block of chocolate." Scully's mouth dropped open in surprise as she accepted the bottled water and stared at him. "Nothing's changed," he told her. "It's all just how we left it. Our packs are still in our room, and they put us right back into bed side by side. I woke up right beside you."

"They put us to bed together?" she asked.

"Obviously they know we sleep together," he answered with a shrug. "You looked comfortable. Nothing out of place. I reckon Eddie must have insisted on carrying you. Everything is unlocked, far as I can tell, and our photos and diaries are in the room, and it's all just the same, Scully."

"I thought there was something familiar about the shower," she admitted. "How long- I feel like I've been asleep for days."

"I think it's the drugs. I don't think it's been very long. That being said, I had this moment once I realised where we were, when I wondered whether we had ever even left! Antarctica really happened, right? We're not just dreaming it? Because the last thing I remember about the processing centre was being in the exam room with those motion sickness patches they wanted us to put on for the 'trip', and then we woke up in bed here drugged to our eyeballs."

"No, it really happened," Scully insisted. "I remember everything. I remember those women dying, I remember nursing you with your concussion, I remember doing all that research and testing the magnetite formula with Eddie and learning about their plague and stockpiling... Oh no," she whispered. "The earthquake, Mulder, all those vaccines and soaps and all the chlorine we produced and had ready to move. Do you think it's all destroyed?"

"I hadn't even thought of it until now," he admitted. "I don't think it was a normal earthquake. Maybe they came under attack? They had just sent the magnetite formula away, as far as we were told, so maybe the supersoldiers did have a way to fight back? And Eddie and Michael knew they could evacuate safely and wanted to get us out as well?"

"We were always on the back foot there," Scully mumbled. "Maybe that's part of what started to get to me."

"How do you feel about being back here?" he asked. She laughed.

"Wondering whether it's real, like you," she conceded with a shrug. "Whether any of it was real. I feel like it was, but maybe it was a test. We might never know. Also, being alone here is frightening. What are we going to do?"

"I think once we're up for a wander we should try to get out and back to the coast. It's not far, obviously," he reasoned. "And we arrived there. Maybe there will be a way to get back."

"Get back to where?" Scully asked. "We know everyone got to a colony in South America, but we don't have an exact position and even if we did-"

"Yeah I know," Mulder agreed softly. "I haven't done much exploring. Maybe there will be a message somewhere. If Eddie was real, I doubt he would have dumped us without a message. We were definitely put through the ringer by two old dudes here, that part was real, so whether they were aliens or not there must be something somewhere to tell us what to do."

"And if not?" Scully queried.

"Then...we might be able to swim to the mainland."

"Swim," Scully drawled sceptically.

"Well they took everything on the land. What's to say they didn't claim the Northern Hemisphere's share of sharks and jellyfish?" Mulder taunted playfully. "It's not 'that' far."

Scully laughed, rubbing her bare foot against the soft inside of his jean-clad thigh as he grinned boyishly at her.

"Of course it's 'not far' Mulder," she teased. "And we just slept through another trip in an alien spacecraft because of motion sickness!" They giggled, sharing their drinks and chocolate before sitting back to watch the sun rise on a new day, something which in their own minds, regardless of reality, they had not witnessed in a very, very long time.


	9. Chapter 9

Nine

"Are they still attached?" Skinner called over his shoulder as the ute he was driving along the bitumen road through the drizzle bounced over mud and potholes, avoiding as much overgrown vegetation and wildlife as possible. It was daytime but the sky was a dark grey, and the sound of the engine seemed to echo unnaturally through the rain.

"Yeah," Gibson answered from the front passenger seat of the ute without turning around. In the back seat, Sarah turned around even though she could not see. Behind them, tied to the towbar was the second of two vehicles they had stolen from La Paz, and after also locating several road maps they were doing their best to forge a getaway. They had made it west into Peru and were headed north-west to the coast via the well-signed tourist route, where they would follow the coastal cities further north until they reached Ecuador.

Both vehicles had been chosen because they had near-full or full tanks, and Skinner and John had quickly siphoned petrol from as many neighbouring cars as possible. Gas stations were a handy thing to come across, Gibson recalled with a happy smile. They never could have driven across the desert of the North, but driving through the South was a luxury and a necessary one. They never would have made it north fast enough on foot in the wet.

In the truck behind them, John was behind the wheel, and Monica and Nicky were belted into the back. Gibson knew everybody felt very safe and were extremely happy to be out of the rain. Everyone was aware that they would need to find more fuel along the way, and if they couldn't then they would need to resume walking, but none of them believed fuel would be a huge problem in what had been a populated, developing country that had seen a lot of traffic and tourism, as long as they stuck to the signed, asphalt roads. Getting to La Paz in the weather and with Monica below full strength had been hard. All Gibson wanted to do was get out, and fast.

"They've moved to Africa," he reported to Skinner and Sarah. "It took them longer than they thought to check that all the supersoldiers here had been treated and affected."

"Did it work?" Sarah asked curiously.

"They think so. Apparently they appeared to disintegrate; sort like a little bomb went off inside them. That's the best description I've been able to translate. But the supersoldiers are pretty strong. They needed to use a lot of their treatment. But there were also more here than they expected to find. I don't know what that means."

"Are they going to spread the same virus they spread in the North?" Skinner asked.

"I don't know," Gibson answered. "But the faster we get north the better."

"How far is it?" Sarah asked.

"Maybe fifteen hundred more miles to the equator," Gibson estimated, looking at the map in his hands. "In this weather and towing we're doing an average thirty miles an hour, pretty slow but steady. If we don't run into any landslides or obstacles or other 'problems' and we manage to find fuel along the way to top up what we're going to get through, it'll probably take us three days including the stops but without much sleep. As long as we don't run into problems. Getting down out of these mountains will be a lot slower, but we should speed up once we're on low ground, so...we're doing way less than thirty now but maybe tomorrow that will get better. We might make it in less than three days if we're lucky. Once we get down, if we find better vehicles or we're confident in being able to get more gas, if we can load up the trunk or something with it, then we could even just use the one car and get there faster. I'm happy to do that if you are. But for now, in case we blow a tyre getting down these mountains, then we need the backup."

"This was a fantastic idea Gibson," Sarah gushed. "Really, you have no idea how grateful I am. Walking around in darkness is one thing, but when it's raining-"

"No problem," he replied with a laugh, blushing at the compliment. "It's easy when I know what you're all thinking. John is the most grateful. He's really worried about Monica."

"Thought Monica would be more grateful," Skinner reasoned.

"Too sick to care," Gibson mumbled, stifling a chuckle. "So Sarah we're following the railroad at the moment and we're a bit over halfway between the border and the coast. You'll be okay with the drop in altitude coming up?"

"I think so," she replied thoughtfully. "You'll know if I'm not, but we packed coca so if anyone starts feeling ill we can use that."

"Nicky okay in the truck behind us?" Skinner asked.

"Yeah he's chomping on some boiled carrot," Gibson answered.

"Are there other human colonies here?" Sarah asked. "You know, you always said the supersoldiers were in Brazil, but what about this coast?"

"The sands here contain magnetite," Gibson told her. "I'm sure there'd be survivors in pueblos and up in the mountains, but we can't do much about them in the position we're in."

"It's been a couple of days," Skinner commented. "Our absence will have been noted. I wonder what they think happened to us?"

"No idea," Gibson mumbled. "To be honest I don't really care."

xxx 

"How's he going hon?" John asked, glancing in the rearview mirror of the truck to see Monica with Nicky in her lap inside the seatbelt, urging him to munch on the soft carrots she had luckily had in her hospital room wrapped up for the next morning.

"He's fine," she promised, grinning and praising her son as he ate. "Remember to brake," she added as they began another descent. John nodded. He was keeping a careful eye on the distance between their car and Skinner's, but Skinner was driving very cautiously downhill and giving them plenty of warning. John was just glad the roads were in relatively good condition. It was not a North American interstate, but it was safe enough. It was certainly safer than the road they had walked in the wet.

"Looks like we're doing what Gibson suggested before we left," John commentated. "Head for the coast in a northerly direction and then just gun it north. Reckon that's a rail line beside us too." Monica glanced out her window and nodded. "If you need to throw up-"

"Gibson will know," she promised with a soft laugh. "But I'm okay for now. I uh, wouldn't mind a sleep but I think I'll hold off until we're on flatter ground and I'm less nervous."

"Don't worry," he assured her. "I won't get us killed. You gonna try to eat what he doesn't?"

"I tried carrot the other day," she reminded him. "Didn't go down well. I just really miss my crackers."

"Soon as we stop in the next town we'll go hunting for, I dunno, taco shells or somethin'," he teased sincerely. She laughed.

"Count me in," she agreed. "I would love some corn chips right about now."

"Oh hang on," John mumbled. "Message comin' through." Monica leant forward to see out the front windscreen as Gibson stuck his upper body out in the drizzle. He was motioning for them to wind down a window and John did the honours. Gibson's faraway but strong voice cut through the rain, muffled by the sounds of the engine but still audible.

"Gonna stop in Arequipa!" he shouted. "Huge city. Lots of shops and gas! We'll load up and then head for the coast. Even with the break we'll be at the coast by nightfall, and then we just have to go. Get you drivers some caffeine! Get ready to stop!"

John laughed as Gibson slid back into his seat, both men winding up their windows to stop them getting any wetter.

"I dunno if I should be having caffeine," John admitted. "How long has it been now?"

"Could be dangerous," Monica teased. "But I am looking forward to the preserved food considering we were not allowed to spend enough time in La Paz to actually get any."

"I don't know what we're meant to do when we get to the equator though," John reasoned. "If we make it, that is. I mean, how are we gonna survive with no renewable resources?"

"Gibson knows something," Monica pointed out. "Otherwise he wouldn't have moved us. He must not be sure of the specifics, so he prefers not to say anything until he gets another sign or close enough to listen in. But he wouldn't have taken us out of that colony unless he knew something about why we were going back north when the whole time since the invasion he was the one telling us to go south."

"Yeah, bit crazy," John agreed. "So you're not worried?"

"No more worried than I am about anything else right now," she admitted with a gentle smile. Monica was not sure whether it was the motion of the car, the rumble of the engine, or the fact that they were moving and on their way to retrieve food she thought she might be able to eat and not throw up, but she was suddenly feeling much better, and she could only hope that they got to the equator before the aliens came back to strip the south. Hopefully they would start in the east and work their way west. If they did that, she was almost certain they would make it.

Almost.

xxx 

"What's this for?" Monica asked when John and Skinner returned to where they had parked their cars that afternoon in the deserted city. John had handed her a pistol and told her it was loaded, and he had that serious look in his eyes that reminded her of their time with the FBI.

"Signs of looting," he stated evenly, handing another gun to Gibson. "Here's yours. You guard this with your life. You might be...hell, how old are you?"

"Twenty-two maybe, twenty-three. It's been two years you know."

"Oh God don't tell me that!" Sarah groaned from out the open backseat window between Gibson and Monica. Nicky was beside her in the car playing with a little toy truck and chatting to himself. "What does that make me? Twenty-seven? Jesus!"

"I think John and Skinner don't want to play 'guess how old I am now'," Monica teased, grinning at her older husband and his friend as they silently holstered their weapons. John had definitely bridged the gap over fifty at some point since the invasion, and Skinner had to be near or over the halfway mark. There were not that many years separating the two men. "I suppose," she continued jokingly. "As the only woman here in my thirties-"

"Well, look who cheered up since we got a car!" John laughed, shutting her down mid-sentence and reaching into the cloth bag he was carrying to reveal a packet of Doritos. Monica's mouth dropped open with shock and her eyes darkened with a desire that was usually reserved for him. He grinned sweetly. "Would you like these? If you're confident enough with the weapon Mon, and you can give Gibson a demo, Skinner and I are gonna go back and try and collect as much as we can. Maybe get another canister of fuel as well."

"If we're just taking one car from here," Sarah commented. "You might want to strip the one we're not taking, throw a few tyres in the back and a battery and some oil and water too."

"Good thinking," John complimented, nodding as Skinner scribbled her ideas down on a tiny notebook and lead pencil they had found which they were using to create a shopping list.

"Yeah leave it to the blind girl to help you with your automobile problems," Gibson teased.

"Hey," John shot back. "Skinner and I have changed plenty of oil in our time. We'll be right. Now, any requests? Mon – vitamins. Start listing 'em."

Monica groaned but couldn't help her smile. Suddenly they were looting again and even though it was wrong, it was fun, and reminded them of older times when maybe they each hadn't felt so alone. Even though they'd always been kept together and had each other, in the colony it was less communal than she had expected, as residents struggled to merge their very individualistic ideas about living into a new structure. The locals had carried on as normal, and though very kind and helpful, all the outsiders had found it difficult to assimilate.

"Has it really been two years?" Sarah asked once John and Skinner had left again. Gibson was observing his weapon and Monica took the ammunition out of hers, holding it out for Sarah's hand.

"Yes," she answered. "Take this."

"Uh...no thank you," she laughed when she realised what it was. "I can't see where I'm pointing it or whether it's loaded or-"

"I just unloaded it. You can check by doing this." Monica settled the firearm in Sarah's hands and helped move her fingers over where she would need to put them. Gibson watched on closely as Monica gave her clear and simple instructions about how to use the gun if she had to. "Hold it for a little while," she concluded. "Practice, get comfortable with it. Gibson if I'm going to need that back anytime soon give me some warning." He nodded.

"I've never held a gun before," Sarah admitted.

"And you probably won't have to again," Monica replied kindly. "But we want you to be familiar with it in case something goes wrong, and you need to defend yourself. Also, if something happened to me or John then Nicky might need the two of you."

"We'd never let anything happen to him, best we could," Gibson promised hurriedly. Monica smiled at him, nodding. It made her sad thinking about that possibility but it was a real chance and she wanted everyone in the team to be prepared.

"Gibson where are we going once we get to Ecuador?" Monica asked. "Is it just to wait out this resource stripping you said is going to be repeated in the south?"

"Shannon told me," he mumbled, blushing. "In her head before she left the last time."

"Are there other human survivors? John and Skinner said there had been looting."

"Here I think the supersoldiers attacked them. With bombs. I don't think they had a chance of fighting the aliens because they had used all the weapons they could still power and deploy on the humans. There are survivors, but I can't hear any right now. They might be in hiding in the mountains. That's the most likely. I heard some up there as we were driving, and they heard us but they were too afraid to come out."

"That's surprising," Sarah commented, half-teasing. "I would have thought a few territorial jungle drug lords would have jumped out at us by now." Gibson chuckled.

"Indiana Jones?" he asked. She laughed, handing the gun back to Monica and turning her attention to Nicky who had clambered onto her lap. Monica took the weapon back and loaded it, casting an eye towards her son. After fleeing the FBI they had always kept a gun, until she had become pregnant and then they had gotten rid of them, and she was not sure how she felt about now having four guns in the presence of her very curious and innocent little boy. They would have to be extremely careful.

She shoved the barrel into the back of her jeans and reached for the corn chips John had thrown on the front passenger seat before leaving. They were original flavour, and Monica's mouth watered as she opened the air-tight bag and inhaled the gentle, salty smell she loved so much. They would be stale, past their use-by date despite their packaging, but she was not sure she cared.

"Glad you like them," Gibson mentioned casually. "Cos John just grabbed another five off the shelf. At this rate, with us minding the cars, they're gonna have to make ten trips back and forth."

"Are they tired?" Sarah asked. "Should we rest the night somewhere?"

"I'd rather not," Gibson replied, suddenly serious as he shook his head and glanced up at her, sitting hi in the seat above him as he stood on the ground. "I don't know how fast they're going to move."

"Hey Gibson," Monica whispered, touching his shoulder with one hand and holding her bag of chips in the other. "I don't know if I want us to be the last people left, you know? I'm not sure you understand how hard that would be to really live that way, and I don't know how long we could survive. I don't want to die of starvation or dehydration, and that's not how I want my son to die. Not in pain like that."

"I know," Gibson promised, taking the hand on her shoulder and squeezing it tightly as they stared into each other's eyes, Monica looking down to meet his. "We're not the last ones left. When we get closer, I'll know more."

"When you said they're going to strip the south," Sarah began, drifting off uncertainly.

"Ask it," Gibson told her, already hearing the rest of the question she was suddenly too afraid to finish.

"What about Antarctica?" she asked. "Potentially that continent is very rich in resources. Within the ice...it was covered in research stations of every large country. There was a lot of science there. And there is a lot of water there. They couldn't have melted the ice because otherwise we would already 'be' at the coast, but um...what have they done there?"

"You want to know about Mulder and Scully," he stated. Sarah nodded, staring in his direction with a concerned frown. Monica also looked on. She had to admit she had asked herself that question as well. Gibson would have known. She supposed they all had.

"I don't know what happened to them," he conceded. "Like I said, I think they had something to do with whatever they used to try to kill the supersoldiers. I think whatever they did do, worked. They haven't melted the ice, but that doesn't mean something hasn't been done to it...the world's ecosystem has been changed forever. I don't know what that will mean for any of us, but I know there are people still alive who do know, and that's where we're going. To find out."

xxx 

"All right Gibson, where are we going?" John asked for what seemed like the thousandth time as they drove slowly through the Ecuadorian streets in the last few hours of daylight amidst a light, muggy drizzle. He was tired, and had been driving for the past several hours after relieving Skinner, and he wanted a break. He wanted to cuddle and play with his son, but that would also have to wait, he supposed.

"Towards the equator," he replied obviously. "Just keep heading straight no...right I think."

"Where are you getting these directions from?" Skinner asked curiously from the backseat, his voice soft so as not to wake the two sleeping women and Nicky, all of whom had nodded off hours previously. Gibson tapped the side of his head.

"You'll see," he teased. "We're going to the monument."

"Which one?" John pressed. "There are monuments probably all along the line in this place."

"That way," Gibson ordered from the front passenger seat, pointing for him to take a left. "Honestly, I have never heard grownups whinge so much in my whole life! You may as well all just start chirping 'are we there yet?' and be done with it!"

"We haven't been that bad," Skinner mumbled, blushing.

"Hah!" Gibson laughed. "Monica's concern I understand. The woman threw up for two hours this morning out the side of a car, truly undignified, but she stopped asking where we were going days ago. Keep going straight now John. I just think you two are funny. You didn't ask this many questions the first time."

"We got to where we were going the first time," John reasoned. "Now we're going back and you're tellin' us it's because these aliens are gonna destroy the rest of the planet for their own purposes or just to have some fun and we don't really know what's going to happen to us. It feels like we're going in circles."

"I know," Gibson assured them both. "To be honest I don't know what's going to happen, but I didn't think you would want to have stayed if they do go ahead and strip the south, and I know that wasn't what Shannon wanted. I'm just trying to keep everyone happy. It's pretty hard, if you haven't noticed."

"We notice," John promised, reaching over and patting Gibson's knee through his jeans. "The girls notice too." Gibson nodded. That he knew.

"You can park anywhere here," he mumbled. "Skinner I expect a big thank you in about ten minutes."

"Why?" Skinner asked.

"Cos I figure it'll take at least that long to pry you away from her." He pointed through the windscreen and John flicked on his headlights to help them see through the rain at dusk. "Welcome to the Northern Hemisphere," he added as the woman he had been able to hear for the last few kilometres stepped forward into the dim beam of the truck's lights.

She was undisturbed by the rain, her hands were shoved into the pockets of her long pants and her long, black hair was pulled behind her, probably in a ponytail. Gibson waited for the moment when Skinner realised they could all see the female supersoldier standing in front of them. She was bravely waiting as though she knew it was them, when in reality she could not possibly have known for sure.

If she had any doubts, Skinner cleared those up when he exclaimed her name in shock and bolted out of the back seat, leaving the door open for rain to invade.

"Shannon!" he repeated as he jogged up to her. He had done his best not to miss her, not to think about her, for what seemed like forever. He had never been sure whether they would see each other again. He had tried to forget her saying she loved him, or her tears, or all her jokes, but he had never really succeeding in blocking her from his mind. She had always been there. Finally she really was there, in person.

Shannon grinned widely and wrapped her arms around his back as he encased her waist and pulled her tightly against him. They laughed with a mixture of nervousness and relief, neither willing to let go first.

"I can't believe you're alive!" she told him happily, resting one of her hands against the back of his bald head as he rocked her happily from side to side.

"Me?" he huffed. "Hell. I was so worried about you."

"I haven't lost my strength," she assured him. "As long as I didn't let myself feel, I couldn't."

"How did you know we were coming?"

"Gibson knew the plan before I left. I assume he never told you?" Skinner pulled his head from her shoulder and shook his head, finally looking into her blue eyes. Her lashes fluttered against the rain and she reached up to brush the water off her face, grinning. "Well I took a gamble that he would remember and hear and be able to make it. The Peruvian coast isn't good for me so this is as far as I could go. We have transport organised."

"What would you have done if it hadn't been us just now?"

"I would have run off into the darkness, or if they started shooting and missed me I might have fought back. Not sure. I was hoping it was you. I haven't seen any other vehicles operating since all this. Speaking of vehicles, how many did you bring?"

"Six and a half including me," he replied. Shannon smirked.

"Nicky?" she guessed.

"No, he's number six," Skinner chuckled. "Monica's pregnant again, and not very well."

"Oh," Shannon whispered, concerned. "Does she need medical treatment or-" Skinner shook his head, cutting her off.

"Rest and fluids and nutrients I think. I know they told us she was sick with Nicky, but this is extreme. She's been in the hospital at the colony the past two months. Because of that we're all confident she's disease-free, but she seems malnourished. She's lucid and then not."

"Well we can deal with that," Shannon assured him. "Good work on the cars too."

"We've been stealing gas all up the west coast, among other things," he teased. "Are you alone here?" Shannon nodded. "Where are we going?"

"I'll explain. Will I fit in there? Since you have a ute we've got a drive on our hands. It'll be much easier to keep going this way with it all packed up. So everyone is well besides Mon? Nobody is hurt or suffering from any disease or injury?"

"Cuts and bruises from the walk out of the colony," Skinner admitted. "Before we left cholera was starting to get its teeth into people and we were really concerned about the mosquitoes bringing Yellow Fever and Malaria in because of the rain, but we've kept everything as sterile as possible. Since we got there, we've only had to really deal with altitude sickness and a couple of tummy bugs. The biggest complaint has probably been a lack of food or an unbalanced diet. We've all lost weight."

"That's fixable," Shannon grinned. "You have no idea how worried I was about you not getting the right vaccines or the vaccines not working. And little Nicky-"

"He got his vaccines, the ones he could have when he was one, but he's not so little anymore!" Skinner teased, grabbing her arm and leading her back to the car. The engine was still running and the wipers were giving Gibson and John a good view from the front seat. When she found their eyes behind the tinted windscreen they were waving and smiling. "Do you want to drive?" Skinner asked. "We are buggered!"

"Oh sure!" she agreed with a loud laugh. "That's all I'm good for isn't it?"

"Pretty much," he taunted, opening John's front door and urging him out and into the back. It was going to be a tight fit because the ute only sat five adults, and Nicky had fallen asleep in Sarah's lap. Gibson climbed through the back as well, giving the front seat to the car's two largest occupants, Skinner and Shannon. Monica was only half-awake and let John climb over her so that she kept her window seat in case she needed to throw up. She curled up against his chest and fell back asleep, allowing him to sit her almost on his lap so that Sarah and Gibson were not forced to sit any closer than a close thigh-to-thigh. Sarah was beside John with Nicky, who was fast asleep, and Gibson was at the other window seat.

"Shannon is it really you?" Sarah asked once Shannon backed the car up and began driving.

"Sure is," she answered happily.

"Where have you been?" she asked. "What have you been doing?"

"It's a long story," Shannon admitted. "I've been all over. And I am going to try to keep you lot alive until a little bit of in-fighting is sorted. I am not impressed by this turn of events, but I'm just a supersoldier right? What do I know?"

"What's going on?" John asked, one arm wrapped around Monica and the other brushing through Nicky's long hair. Shannon risked a glance over her shoulder at them and grinned.

"I'll explain once everyone's caught up on some sleep," she promised. "I'll take us through the night no worries. John, Walter tells me the reason Monica hasn't even acknowledged me yet is because she's suffering from some rather severe morning sickness? Congratulations."

"I don't think you can restrict it to mornings only," he teased. "And 'rather severe' might be an understatement. But thank you. I'm happy, but she's not as healthy as she was last time. You might get a 'pull over' order at any moment."

"I'm always prepared," she stated with a firm nod. She returned her attention to the front. "Well it's nice to see you all managed to stay together without any major setbacks," she told them all. "Are you armed?"

"We are now," Skinner answered. "Me, John, Monica and Gibson. You?"

"No," she conceded. "A gun wouldn't have survived my swim."

"You can have mine if we need to start shooting," Gibson called, grimacing. "I haven't even taken a pot shot with it yet."

"Chicken," Sarah whispered under her breath. He smirked and nudged her in the ribs as she giggled and reached for his hand.

"So where to?" Skinner asked, reaching across the console and resting his hand on Shannon's damp thigh.

"Settle in for a drive because I'm taking you up to Panama," she answered. "We've got a boat to intercept."


	10. Chapter 10

Ten

"Such a pretty little desert," Mulder teased as he and Scully walked barefoot through the warm sand. He reached over to flick the rim of Scully's large hat which she had rediscovered amongst her things at the processing centre. She laughed at the comment and his attention and stretched a pale arm up to steady the sun-protecting accessory. Scully had always been pale, but even the freckles he had once been used to along her cheeks and shoulders had faded in Antarctica, and she was lily white; a few hours in the equatorial sun and she would fry. Even Mulder had sunscreen and a collared shirt on. Neither of them wanted any pain.

It was the afternoon after they had watched the sun rise together from the watch tower, and they were heading back the way they had originally come, to the west coast, to relax on the beach and watch the sun set. They had no idea how or why they had been returned, but they had thoroughly explored the processing centre and found no other signs of life. Everything had been exactly as they had left it, including the amount of food and water and other supplies. Mulder had expected Eddie or Michael to at least leave a note.

"Race ya," Scully announced suddenly, removing her hand from his and jogging up the last dune. They could hear the water lapping against the shore and they knew the edge was close. Mulder did not try to run after her. He was carrying a bag with blankets, food and water and a few other bits and pieces. After the sunrise, Scully had slept for a few more hours and had rediscovered her energy. However Mulder, having remained awake all morning, felt like he needed a nap.

Thoughts of tiredness disappeared as soon as Scully screamed. It was not a frightened scream, he realised, because instead of running back down the dune to him she took off ahead, disappearing over the edge. It had been more like the 'there's hot water' scream he remembered from so long ago. Or perhaps just the previous week, depending on which possible reality he chose to believe.

"MULDER!" she shouted. "COME QUICK!"

"Coming!" he called back loudly, lengthening his stride and pushing himself to get up and over the sand, following her footsteps. When he got to the top, he found himself staring at a clear, blue ocean and a lowering sun in a lighter blue, clouded sky.

And then he saw it, and he realised why Scully had screamed.

It was still there. The sixty foot luxury schooner anchored exactly where Mulder remembered leaving it. Had nothing changed, he wondered? Surely Shannon and Ted had taken the boat back to wherever they had brought it, because how else had Ted gotten off the island?

He scratched his head and searched for Scully. She was on the edge of the shore, her bare feet only just meeting the top rise of the tide. She was turning between the boat and Mulder quickly, as though checking both were still where she wanted them to be, and when she saw Mulder she waved him down, grinning madly under her large hat. He laughed, jogging down the rest of the way and dropping the bag a few metres from her.

"Look, look it's still here!" she exclaimed excitedly.

"I can see that," Mulder teased, amused by her choice of words. It's still here, as opposed to 'it came back' told him exactly where her mind was at. She didn't really think they had come back either, and Mulder was not sure what to do with that belief. "Who brought it back?"

"Maybe it never left," she suggested. "I mean if we really did hallucinate the last year of our lives or if we lived it virtually or something, maybe it never, ever left?"

Mulder had never heard Scully so excited that she forgot all her training as a scientist and immediately jumped to the most implausible of explanations just to justify something she really, desperately wanted. He laughed, reaching for her fidgeting hands and holding them both tightly in an effort to calm her before she started jumping around like a three year old.

"Deep breaths," he teased as water lapped at his ankles.

"Mulder it's like somebody HEARD me!" she insisted, her blue eyes wide and searching his as she stared up at his face from the level of his chest. He peered down at her curiously. "When you asked me everything I wanted to do before I died, it's like somebody heard."

"Dana if that's true," Mulder whispered, cupping her jaw to still her and forcing her to maintain eye contact. "They were your dying wishes. It would mean you were dying."

"But I am," she hissed, tears instantly springing to her eyes. Mulder's heart wrenched as he fought not to visibly cringe. She reached up with one hand to cover his against her face and hold it there. "We both are. We're...I don't know where we are, or why, and we're alone with only a few weeks of food and water stored here, and what on earth are we going to do?"

"What do you want to do?" he asked nervously. They had deliberately not spoken about the situation during the times of day they had been awake, but it had been playing on both their minds. They had been dumped back where they had been picked up, discarded or saved; either way sentenced to a death just as certain as any earthquake would have caused.

"I had a dream this morning," she told him, her voice serious. "And I dreamed we were sleeping in our home, and since this boat is here it all fits. It's like it was a sign for us, Mulder. I think that's what we should do. I can sail us into Chesapeake Bay, and we can walk home one more time, and we can die there. I've still got everything in my pack to make that happen; I checked."

Mulder did not brush away the tears that trickled onto his cheeks as he listened to her describe ending their lives in a manner completely unbefitting of the sentiment. It was not sad, or even detached. It was happy. She was happy she had found a solution and that they would be together. It was what they had always wanted, after all. It was everything they had always felt they deserved; to go together, to journey onwards together, neither of them left behind. Neither of them could have handled that, not at this stage in their lives. When they were younger they might have learned to cope, but not anymore. Not when it was all but over. What was there to cope for? Who would benefit?

"Okay sweetheart," he whispered, his voice shaking and his throat aching. Scully pulled herself onto her tiptoes and urged his head down, pressing her lips to his in a firm, reassuring, closed-lip kiss which Mulder returned. When he pulled away for air she pressed her forehead to his and held him there, hunched against her, his hands settled on her hips.

"We'll be okay, Mulder," she promised softly. "We'll cry together, and laugh, and make love, and then we'll take the pills and it won't hurt. I would never hurt you."

"I know," he mumbled, stroking her cheeks when he heard her own voice break. "I know. Do we have to leave right away?"

"No. Maybe we can have a look on board this evening before it gets dark and then tomorrow talk about it some more. For now, let's take a tour and see if anything's different, and then we can watch the sun set and just enjoy it."

"Bit of cloud about; should be a good one," he told her. She nodded against him and pulled away, smiling sadly into his brown eyes and stroking her hands along his face.

"I'm scared too," she whispered certainly, holding his gaze. He nodded. He believed her.

They walked around the boat in relative silence, speaking only to point out little discrepancies and interesting facts. For example the boat was empty and unlocked, but it was not dusty, as though it had been cleaned and left there for them to discover at their leisure. It was fully stocked with supplies and all the navigational maps and compasses were in order. Scully mentioned they would have to check the sails before making any decisions, in case any had been damaged, but on the whole the boat looked extremely well looked after. It looked like they had only just gotten off it, and time had stopped to take care of it.

"Strange," Mulder whispered as they settled on one of the blankets on the rise of the dune to watch the sun set just to the right of the schooner. The clouds reflected magnificent shades of bright pink and orange and they lay on their backs side by side, watching.

"So what do you think, Mulder?" Scully asked eventually, her hat pulled low over her eyes. She turned her head towards his so that she did not have to look directly at the sun, and he raised his eyebrows, silently urging her to elaborate. "Do you think we've lost a year of our lives, or maybe just a week?"

"I have no goddamn idea," he admitted. "I've never been more serious in my life either Scully. I have absolutely no idea. It 'felt' real. We spent a lot of time together and it 'was' real, because we remember the same events, so you were there when I was, where I was. Just, waking up in bed yesterday, and finding everything how we left it... The only thing I can't explain is that the clothes we woke up in were not the clothes we had on when we were first put under, and somebody had stacked our photos and the album and your diaries- Your diaries, obviously, did not write themselves."

"No, that does seem to indicate it was real, or at least real enough for me to be able to write but...God, I don't know. At the same time it doesn't seem real. It feels like it happened in another lifetime, in another world, like it was us but it wasn't."

"You said something like that to me in Antarctica," Mulder pointed out. "You said you didn't feel like 'you' anymore, that you had lost a part of yourself and that you wanted to come home. Maybe what you're feeling now is just the realisation of how you were feeling then; that it wasn't really 'you' there, that it wasn't happening and that it was just some dream."

"But it 'did' happen?" she asked.

"I think it did," he confirmed. "Do you really feel like it didn't?"

"I don't know," she whispered. "Maybe I...want it to feel like it didn't because I...never felt like I fit in there. I fit in with you, in our little home there but we weren't there all that often." She covered her face with her hands and shook her head on the blanket. "I just didn't want that to be where we ended our lives, Mulder," she wept. "I wanted to be here, somewhere 'real', even if it was in the desert."

"We will be," he promised, rolling onto his side and settling a hand on her abdomen as she sobbed. He carefully removed her hat so he could see her face. "Scully, I...Don't cry."

"I'm sorry. I think I'm still a bit hyper-sensitive from the drugs and the excitement. I'm just tired. I'm always tired." Mulder nodded, accepting her explanation and sitting up. He urged her to do the same as she removed her hands from her face, and she sat back against his chest as one arm wrapped around her waist and the other was stretched behind him to balance them against the dune. They watched the sun finish setting in silence, and when stars began glittering through the clouds in the night sky Mulder pressed his lips to Scully's neck in a silent question. "Can we sleep here in the fresh air?" she asked. He had almost expected it.

"Of course," he promised. "I brought another blanket." They parted so Mulder could dig through the bag, and after taking turns running to a faraway patch of dark sand to relieve themselves and sharing some water and a nibble on some crackers they settled down to sleep.

xxx 

"Scully! This is the last of it," Mulder announced loudly as he paddled the small, wooden lifeboat up alongside the schooner. Scully peered over the edge of the stairs and smiled when she realised it was their backpacks. He had brought food, water and medical supplies over, and she was glad he had remembered their belongings.

Scully climbed down into the dinghy to steady it as Mulder ascended with the bags. It was a balancing act but one which they had perfected over the day's work. Scully had more closely inspected the boat and it was seaworthy. The weather was clear, the wind was good, and she was hoping they could set off that afternoon.

"I looked over the maps," she explained once the lifeboat had been resecured. They were both standing at the bow, leaning against the railing casually, watching the water drifting around them and listening to it lap against the hull as though the world had not changed. "I think we'll be able to follow the coastline up depending on the winds. We have fuel on board, almost a full tank, and it's not as though we plan to need it after this, so at our discretion we could use that too."

"Whatever you say, Captain," Mulder assured her with a cheeky smile. He lifted the sleeve of his light blue t-shirt to reveal the motion sickness patch on his tricep. "Ready when you are."

"If you say aye-aye next you'll be in trouble," Scully drawled, smiling at the sound of his giggle. "Well let's have some lunch first," she suggested. "We should run through some emergency procedures before we set off."

"What to do when aliens invade!" Mulder hissed in a spooky, bad horror movie voice. Scully laughed, shaking her head in shame as he grinned. They had woken up side by side in the sand under the safety of blankets that morning, and despite what they were returning to, or perhaps because of it, they were both happy to get organised and leave the island. It would be Scully's last chance to sail, and Mulder knew that was a special thought for her having grown up idolising her Navy father. Mulder only hoped they did not run into any surprise storms.

"OI MAN, YOU FORGET SOMETHING?"

Mulder and Scully pulled apart at the sound of a voice not their own. They turned back towards the island, in the direction it had come, only to see Eddie standing on the beach up to his knees in water holding a dark, long and thin bag around his shoulders.

"What the HELL are you doing here?" Mulder shouted back, angered by his sudden reappearance. They had been alone, dammit. They had CHECKED.

"Doctor ordered a dress, didn't she?" he asked presumptuously. "Think we should talk. I'd swim right out but this thing aint waterproof!" Mulder and Scully shared a doubtful look but ultimately they conceded. Eddie appeared to be alone, and he had never hurt them as far as they were aware. And he was real. He would have answers that they wanted.

"Let's get the boat. I'll go get him," Mulder mumbled.

"Where did he come from?" Scully hissed curiously.

"Last night I guess," he sighed. "While we were asleep." She nodded thoughtfully, following him towards where they had stored the dinghy at the side of the hull to untie it.

Several minutes later Eddie's long, dark legs climbed aboard. He was wet and sandy from his cream shorts to his toes but the rest of his pants and his white t-shirt were dry. His afro was the same. Scully had almost been expecting him to appear as the old man she first remembered, but apparently he had decided he liked the Eddie body so much he wanted to keep it. Maybe he thought they would respond better to him when he looked like that, she reasoned, tall and strong and dark. He looked friendly, but there was a subtle reminder in the spread of his chest and the muscles on his arms that he was stronger than they had first assumed. He handed Scully his package and then turned to help Mulder put the smaller boat away without being asked or even bothering to offer.

Once they were done Eddie led the way back to Scully and soon found himself standing between a very short, redheaded doctor and a very tall psychologist, both of who were not happy with his last-minute surprise.

"You weren't about to set sail without me, were you?" he asked, chuckling as he looked between their glares. "I thought you'd be out for longer. I gave you a top-up when we got here hoping you wouldn't wake up before I got back."

"How long have we been here?" Scully asked pointedly.

"Uh...less than a week," he answered uncertainly. "I don't really know, cos I haven't been around. I had to leave you so knocked you out til I could get back. Either I was away longer than I thought or you both woke up faster than expected. You feeling okay?"

"It's taken a while," Mulder conceded. "What are we doing here? You're right, we were just about to leave, so unless you have a reason why-"

"Open the bag, Dana," Eddie interrupted. "It's yours." Scully looked at him sceptically but then dropped some of her grip on what appeared to be a garment bag so that she was holding it up beside her. She began lowering the zip and peeked inside, and her mouth dropped open in surprise as she turned back to stare at Eddie, speechless.

"What is it?" Mulder asked, although he was beginning to get a good idea.

It's like somebody heard me, she had said.

And they had. Scully pulled the zip down further to reveal the bodice of an emerald green evening gown on a hanger. Mulder pressed his lips together to avoid looking as surprised as she did, but he was. He had never seen Scully in a dress, let alone something so beautiful. Suddenly he wanted to.

"What is going on?" Scully pressed, quickly zipping the dress back up, concealing it in the garment bag. She laid it over the nearby wooden bench and turned back to Eddie with impatient hands resting on her hips. "I want to know how you know I ordered anything like that!"

"You already know," he assured her with a soft smile. "Let's call it a talent. It's not something that everybody can do, you see. I didn't know I could do it until I came here. Michael cannot see your thoughts, but he knew I could and that frustrated him because it made him feel less important."

"So great, you heard what I said to Fox and dropped us back here and was it all some elaborate joke to you then?" she exclaimed. Her cheeks were flushed with confusion as she waited for Eddie to reply.

"It was not a joke," he answered seriously. "I did what I could to prolong your life. What we experienced in the complex was the effects of drilling into the ice which had begun several hundred kilometres away."

"That's not very far," Mulder mumbled, wincing. "Who was drilling?"

"My people," Eddie replied. "Dana had told me of her own geological knowledge of the continent and I was preparing a submission to convince those above me to abandon a search for a cure to our plague on the mainland and to focus on the ice. Obviously my instructions would be that the humans there and all the resources there were relocated first, but... I tried to block these thoughts from Michael but he worked it out, and took it over my head, and they didn't wait."

"Shit," Mulder hissed. "So we lost everything there?"

"No. Michael was just as pissed as I was, and once we had knocked you out we got what we could. We hid it here after putting you in bed and drugging you, and then we went back for a little meeting and to survey the damage."

"Please tell me they did not destroy Antarctica," Scully seethed. "If that ice melts, I mean...right now, we'd be metres underwater. You cannot change the earth like this. You don't have the right to do it!"

"That's my belief but it's not shared," Eddie replied steadily. "It's not destroyed, though. It's got a few holes in it but it's still there. They found nothing useful which had not already been tested. But they are going to go ahead and strip the south. It's already begun." Scully crossed her arms and turned her back on him, shaking her head. Mulder stood silently, scratching his cheek and trying to work out how he felt about anything. All he felt was numb.

"So...What could you save?" he asked eventually.

"Medicines, the notes, the science. We were able to recover a large portion of Tower Three. I've asked those above me for a research grant and they're considering it now. I beg you not to leave until I find out whether I'm successful."

"Were they ever going to listen to you?" Scully asked as she faced them. "Eddie, I know you mean well, and we are grateful, but we just want to go home-"

"And kill yourselves. Yes, I know," he answered grimly. "I am not forcing you to stay, but I am pleading with you to give me some more time."

"But what could the outcome be? That we're allowed to live? In what sort of world? Half sand, half rising seas as you destroy the ice caps and everything that is living about this planet. We'll be the last things left alive and that's wrong, because we can't survive that way. We haven't evolved to live in that sort of environment. I know you can understand that."

"Of course," Eddie assured her. "Look I have no attachments to my planet. I don't have family; I'm not responsible to anyone but myself. With Michael's support I've asked permission to recreate part of your world to study, to preserve. For research. If they let me do that, I'll stay, and I want you to stay and help me."

"But you've... your people have affected our climate. How could we-"

"Only on the surface."

"So you're just going to 'try' to recreate hundreds of millions of years of evolution in what, a few days?"

"I don't know how much space I'll be given," he answered. "We control this planet now and it's no longer up to me. I have to listen to my government. But we could do that, yes."

"What about the people?" Scully asked in a soft whisper, tears stinging her eyes. "Do you realise that I lost my mother, my brothers, their wives, their children? Who says I want it to go back to how it was if they can't be there?"

"I guess that's your choice," Eddie replied. "You know what you can live with. If I'm successful, I'll get a small excavation and rejuvenation team and we'll start small. Here, and Hawaii. Places which were ecologically exciting and vibrant."

"What are we meant to do then?" Mulder asked. "Obviously you've already got every species which survived on the earth catalogued by name and genome. When you say you want us to help you...help you how? Because we don't want to be your humans in the museum."

"I can give you somewhere comfortable to live, and you could help. You-"

"And what's going to happen to us if you're unsuccessful?" Scully interrupted. "If you don't get this 'grant' you're seeking."

"Then I wouldn't stand in your way," he answered. "You could do whatever you wanted. Just, I had to make sure I caught you before you left, but I have to get back. Just please wait. At least wait until I get back to say goodbye."

"Yeah okay," Mulder groaned. "You're lucky you're so goddamn cute."

"Hey man," Eddie laughed, his grin of bright white teeth wide and amused. "You trippin'."

"Go practise your slang somewhere else Eddie," Scully taunted dryly, crossing her arms. "We'll be here." Eddie pressed his palms together in a prayer configuration and bowed to her seriously before jumping straight over the edge of the boat into the shallow water. Scully and Mulder hurried to the edge, afraid he would have hurt himself, but he was swimming lazily back to the shore. "Did you hear a splash?" Scully asked when she felt Mulder's elbow brush hers. He shook his head.

"So," he began after they watched Eddie until he disappeared over the top of the dune. "Are you going to try on that dress or should I?"

"Mulder, I don't know about this," she whispered, hoping they were alone again and that Eddie couldn't hear them. She thought of Gibson, and whether Eddie heard them the same way he did. Or had. She didn't know what had become of him. "I just want to go."

"Yeah, me too," Mulder mumbled, rubbing her back over her shirt as she squinted towards the bright sun. "But if there's a way that we can help I suppose we...owe it to them." Scully pressed her lips together and nodded, but Mulder knew her heart wasn't in helping. Not that long ago she had told him she wanted to return to the colonies to help as a doctor, and perhaps that would be what she would be asked to do, but suddenly Mulder couldn't see it. He couldn't see the fire in her eyes to do that again. He wasn't sure she cared either way.

xxx 

"You want me to sail us where?" Scully exclaimed an entire three days later when Eddie finally returned. She was mad. They had waited, and fallen asleep waiting. At various times both she and Mulder had felt like giving up and heading off anyway, but they had always pulled each other back in and convinced them to wait. At the end of the third day Eddie suddenly reappeared over the dune as though he had only been gone for a few hours.

However, to the man's credit, Scully determined, he obviously knew their thoughts and realised he had been gone for a long time, and he was being very patient with their tempers.

"The Panama Canal," he repeated calmly. "South-south-west. It's not far and it's the fastest way to get to the Pacific from here."

"What's in the Pacific?" Mulder asked.

"Hawaii," Eddie answered, trying hard not to control his wide grin at his success. "Home base. You remember Ted?"

"Shannon's friend on the inside of the supersoldier program," Scully instantly recalled. "What about him?"

"He's getting together a rejuvenation team. Excavation is going to begin immediately."

"Excavation of what?" Scully snapped. "Look around, Eddie. We're in the desert. I'm pretty sure you excavated everything already."

"Our mining was mostly biological. You may have noticed that your buildings are untouched. The sand was a by-product of the mining, and we can clear it."

"To reveal invisible nations," Scully seethed. "You can't put life back after more than a year. What space did they give you?"

"The closest continent to our current position above the Equator. One hundred humans have been recovered alive and will be relocated."

"One hundred," Mulder repeated slowly. "One-zero-zero."

"There were twenty billion people on this planet," Scully growled.

"Yes," Eddie smirked. "And you were all doing a fabulous job of killing that which you depended upon for survival. Why not embrace the opportunity to start again? I've been given permission to rebuild a human city for historical purposes and as somewhat of an apology to those who have survived. I have spoken to them at length about your assistance in attempting to find solutions to our own plague."

"Why would any alien want to help us?" Mulder asked curiously.

"You don't get it, do you?" Eddie shot back with a soft chuckle. "When we first came here we tried to accommodate you. We had no reason to distrust you. Your people gave us that reason by deceiving us. It has taken a lot of arguing on my part to convince them that I have with me two humans who have earned that trust back, and who have gone out of their way to assist us, when they of course have no reason to trust us."

"You sing our praises unnecessarily," Scully mumbled. "Remember we had no choice to come to Antarctica?"

"You could have sulked there but you didn't," Eddie reasoned. "I realise you hide your distress very well, both of you, but I know it's there. Look I won't leave. Ted's getting together a group of people who, like us I suppose, prefer it here to there. If we can't find a cure for the plague what's left for us back there anyway? We're going to stay and continue searching but colonisation of your planet is no longer on the agenda. I would be honoured if the two of you helped me with design. You'll come up with more practical ideas; my study of you all is too theoretical sometimes."

"Design," Mulder echoed with a frown. "But all the buildings still exist. Where-"

"Obviously without the base systems those buildings were created to depend on we'll need to make some changes," Eddie replied, cutting Mulder off with barely restrained enthusiasm. "And we'll need plenty of area to farm. Suggestions?"

"Depends what you want to farm," Scully sighed, thoughtful but exhausted. "Obviously you can't recreate sophisticated power grids so; I mean there are already places in the United States where groups of people survived without-"

"I aint going to live in no Amish farm," Mulder interrupted, smirking at Scully when she glared pointedly at him. Realising he was half-kidding, she managed a tentative smile as he raised his eyebrows suggestively. "Unless you wear the little bonnet," he reconsidered. She laughed, shaking her head.

"Well I'm partial to Virginia myself, but there would be space in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, or in the central states: Kansas, Nebraska or Oklahoma. I'm sure those borders mean nothing now, but you get the idea. It depends on what's going to happen to the climate. We experienced a winter there already and, uh, it definitely didn't snow."

"We'll have to wait and see what your atmosphere does with the weather, but we can do that from Hawaii. Can you get us there Dana?"

"Uh...It's an extremely long trip Eddie. If we hit rough seas or crosswinds I can't guarantee...I'm not an experienced sailor. I don't have a licence. At least in getting to Panama we'll have land never too far away but in the open ocean I...I don't know."

"Why do we have to sail when I know you can get us there faster?" Mulder asked.

"Escapees from one of the colonies. Ted tells me Shannon McMahon assisted them. He told Shannon to expect us."

"Psychic, is he?" Scully asked dryly.

"Shannon asked him about you before she left to retrieve them. He spoke to us while you were unconscious, so instead of taking you straight to Hawaii we brought you back here."

"I can't guarantee their safety on this boat," Scully repeated. "Mulder and I sailing up the coast is one thing, it didn't matter so much if we ran into problems, but in the open ocean with a cabin of people I...am not sure I want to be responsible for that when I'm not in the most pleasant or positive state of mind."

"Just get us to Panama and we'll do the rest then," Eddie assured her. Scully sighed. She nodded and turned away from them, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.

She knew Eddie could hear her, but she was used to Gibson and knew how to handle that. What she could not handle was being led around for other people's wishes, being told where she was going and why and for how long, and being forced to be responsible for other people's lives. She had chosen to be a doctor, but it no longer felt like a choice. It felt like she was just being kept around because she was useful if they wanted some humans to survive. And if that was true, then she was the reason Mulder was being kept. Her work or skills were the only reason he was still alive, and that wasn't fair to him. It wasn't fair to either of them.

"Dana-" Mulder whispered. He rested his hands on her shoulders and she felt herself flinch and take a definite step forward, pulling away. The light fingertips which had touched her also jerked away and Scully did not turn around. She didn't want to see the hurt or confusion in his eyes.

"Just leave me alone for a minute," she hissed, tears stinging her eyes and forcing them closed.

"No rush," he promised after an extra second's hesitation. She heard him retreat with Eddie, two sets of slow, masculine footsteps ambling away, leaving her be. She tried to convince herself it was just another Sunday afternoon and they were just one of many boats out on the water. But it simply wasn't true, and she could not make herself see things that weren't there.

Scully wished that she could. She wanted to see her parents. She wanted to ask them what she should do; she wanted to know whether it was peaceful where they were. Because for all the quiet that was in the world she had left, all Scully really wanted was some peace.


	11. Chapter 11

Eleven

Monica laughed as she watched Gibson chasing Nicky around the sand at the base of the small lighthouse. They were just metres from the edge of one of the canal's two locks, which was thankfully open. Monica was not sure why Shannon and Gibson had been so relieved to discover the ability to pass freely through. All she knew was that they were being picked up by a boat and taken somewhere else. Monica didn't think there were many other places they could go, but she was happy to wait and let time give her the answers she sought.

John appeared at the entrance to the thin, cylindrical white tower and beckoned her over. His blue eyes were hidden by sunglasses but Monica could see he was watching his son under the supervision of the young man they travelled with who could read minds. Gibson had always been good with Nicky, and Monica and John trusted everyone in their team with him, but they were not exactly playing in the park, and since he had spent almost his entire life in the desert Nicky had no idea about water.

Monica pushed herself off the warm sand and walked to him, rubbing her lower back and offering him a bright smile as she regained most of his attention.

"What's up?" she asked.

"Shannon and Skinner have picked up a boat on the horizon," he whispered, holding her elbow gently to keep her close. She nodded seriously. They had been waiting for a couple of days; they had been expecting something to come eventually. "There's a decent wind that's going to pull them in pretty fast. They think it will be here by tonight."

"Okay," she replied. It was only early morning. They had time and enough food and water to keep them moderately comfortable.

"How are you gonna be if we have to get on this ship?" John asked seriously. Monica rested a hand on the small swell of her abdomen and hummed.

"I'm feeling a bit better I think, but I'm not making any promises. I haven't been on what I guess is a sailboat since I was a kid. It's not fuel-powered right?"

"No, I've seen it. It's got sails."

"Are they humans, do you think?" Monica asked hopefully.

"Shannon isn't worried, so even if they're not human I don't think we should be scared. I have no idea where we're going though. She won't say."

"I was thinking about that," Monica replied, nodding eagerly. "Considering this particular point was chosen as a pickup and the boat's coming from the Atlantic, maybe we're going out into the Pacific. Hawaii, or maybe the Marshall Islands."

"Do you know how far away that is Mon?" John sighed, running a hand through his growing, silver hair. "And if we get into trouble out there there's nothin' to help us."

"I know," she whispered. "We'll just have to trust our captain and uh, deal with whatever trouble we may run into when it happens. As long as I've got you and Nicky I'll be fine."

"Okay," John sighed, somewhat eased by her words but not feeling any less responsible for their futures. "I just, you know, drow-" He was cut off by Monica's fingertips resting hurriedly over his lips.

"Don't even say it John Doggett," she urged seriously, her brown eyes wide. "It's NOT going to happen. I know it." He pressed his lips together and nodded, and she smiled at him. "Now, are you going to take me upstairs? I want to see this boat."

"I'll just grab the little guy," John assured her. "Meet you up there." Monica nodded, turning around to see Nicky sitting in the sand with Nicky and Sarah.

xxx 

"Wow, it's huge," Monica gushed half an hour later as she stared through the one pair of binoculars at the large sailboat making its way closer to the canal. "How does it know it can get through?"

"Probably doesn't," Shannon answered, standing just behind Monica with her arms folded. It would be a defensive posture on anyone else but Shannon made it seem relaxed. Skinner was beside her, doing his best not to keep watching the supersoldier beside him and grinning. He had missed her, and it was obvious she had missed him, but they were both trying hard not to acknowledge that aspect of their relationship. Probably not until they were alone, Monica assumed.

"So how many of these yachts are in operation?" John asked, watching Nicky sitting on the cement floor patting it to his own individual rhythm as he hummed. "Because that looks to me like the thing Mulder and Scully wandered off towards, what, more than a year ago?"

"You think?" Monica asked, seriously considering the possibility of Mulder and Scully's return as she continued to watch the approaching boat. "Surely someone more experienced than Dana would be in charge of guiding such a big sailboat in here. The winds would have to be perfect."

"Shannon?" Skinner asked. "Is it them?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "It could be assistance, or it could be other survivors. There will be other survivors. From Central America and elsewhere. Everyone will be brought together. If you had stayed in the colony, you might not have survived, so don't think you made the wrong choice abandoning those people. I don't think you did. Ted hasn't told me much about what was going on. He had to leave quickly."

"Would Gibson be able to hear the occupants from here?" John asked, turning around to stare at Skinner and Shannon. They shared a silent glance but nodded. They had all spent years with Gibson and they knew what he was capable of. "Anyone else freaked out by the fact he hasn't involved himself in this then?" John continued.

"I'm here," Gibson announced softly from behind them. Everyone turned to face him and he grimaced in John's direction. "I can hear them. There are some things you should see for yourselves. You wouldn't believe me otherwise."

"Good things or bad things?" Monica asked. Gibson thought for a long time, pushing his glasses up his nose and pressing his lips together.

"I don't know," he answered. "There are things I need to see for myself too, you know." Before any of his friends could react he turned and jogged back downstairs, rejoining Sarah on the cement bench he had left her on. "Back," he announced unnecessarily as he sat beside her. She might have been blind, but she knew him and she smiled at his return.

"They were talking about you huh?" she teased, laughing when he scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Anything bad?"

"Just lots of guessing games about this boat that's coming in," he replied. "Whether or not I heard anything that would give them answers."

"Kind of cheating, don't you think?"

"Totally," he agreed, nodding. "Besides, some stuff I'm hearing, I'm not too sure about."

"We're not in any danger, are we?"

"No, no, I promise," Gibson mumbled, reaching out to squeeze her denim covered knee. "I'm just kind of worried about some things on a more personal level."

"Wanna talk about it?" she offered. Gibson sighed.

"I can't. That wouldn't be fair. But...You know how you always said that before you lost your sight you were good at sensing people? Even back then?"

"Sensing things about them, yeah," she replied. "I'd pick up energies. I still do when I'm not focussing on how to put one foot in front of the other."

"Put it this way then," he reasoned. "If what I'm hearing is real, you will definitely pick it up. It's strong. And I want to see if you can pick it up because for the first time...I'm not sure if I really believe it."

"Why?"

"I don't know," he admitted, shrugging and allowing her to take his hand. "Maybe I don't want to believe it."

"Because it's bad?" she asked in a whisper.

Gibson blushed under the weight of her confused stare. He glanced at the blonde hair long and tangled around her upper arms before shaking his head to clear his thoughts and answer her question. He knew his answer would raise more questions but he knew it was the right answer. He hated speaking the words but he had to. He wanted Sarah to know that what she was going to feel wasn't necessarily a wrong thing. Gibson just was not sure why.

"Maybe I don't want to believe it...because I know it's not so bad."

xxx 

"Take her in," Eddie instructed as he stood beside Scully at the stern that afternoon. She nodded silently. The comment was useless. They had already taken the sails down. Or rather, Mulder and Eddie had done that. Mulder was currently stretched out on the couch behind her, trying not to groan with every tilt of the boat in the choppy water. He had a fresh patch on his arm but the last one had worn off before he had replaced it and he had exerted himself with the sails, pushing his balance and coordination to their limits. Scully did not have to be a mind reader or a doctor to know he was suffering.

She could see the entrance to the canal and the markers telling her where to go, but all she really wanted to do was pull the handbrake and stop the rocking and skipping so that Mulder could sleep. Maybe even so that she could sleep. It was not fun being the only person who sort of knew what they were doing. If she was stumped on a sailing question she couldn't ask anyone for help. And the questions she had were not beginner sailing questions. They were on a very big sail boat, a luxury yacht, and her questions were of equal significance.

She had to make all the decisions, and it had been a very long time since she had closed her eyes for more than ten minutes. Scully was so tired she knew that she could curl up on the polished floors she was standing on and fall asleep within minutes, calmed by the rocking in a way Mulder could never be.

He whimpered and Scully's heart felt like it broke. She couldn't stop her voice shaking.

"We're nearly there sweetheart. Are you going to be sick? Maybe you shouldn't lie down. Maybe stand."

"Can't," he mumbled. "Sea legs gone overboard." Scully wanted to laugh at his little joke but didn't. Instead she reached for Eddie's shirt sleeve and pulled him to the wheel. She pointed straight and he nodded. She had relinquished command for short breaks and in those times so far he had kept the boat mostly on course.

Scully turned around once she was sure Eddie was comfortable and walked to the upholstered couch to crouch beside Mulder. His forehead was sweaty and as her fingertips brushed some of the warm liquid from his face he opened his eyes and stared at her in shock. She beamed at him, letting her fingers run through his longer than usual straight, brown hair.

"What colour am I?" he asked, his brown eyes glittering with amusement and comfort.

"Mm, grey," she whispered. "You're pale. We'll be on land soon. How's your stomach?"

"Empty so okay," he promised. "I'd be starving if I didn't feel like I was about to split into ten different pieces going in all different directions."

"I'm so sorry," she mumbled, tears trickling down her cheeks before she could stop them.

"Hey, no, it's not your fault," Mulder urged, trying to push himself up. A wave of nausea crashed over him as soon as he lifted his head and Scully pushed him gently back down with one of her hands as the other wiped her face. "I'll be okay," Mulder added, hoping she believed him. He knew she hated to see him sick as much as he didn't like watching her suffer, and he could see the dark circles under her eyes and the grey-white of her own cheeks. If he had the use of his arms he would reach up to touch her, and he wished that he could, but Scully pre-empted any weak attempt by squeezing his hand and bringing it to her lips for a tender kiss.

"I'll get you off as fast as I can Mulder," she promised in a whisper. He nodded and shut his eyes. He believed her. It wouldn't be much longer and he would be on land. And he could regather himself and hopefully not look too stupid in front of those they were meeting.

xxx 

Scully was not sure what to feel when she heard Skinner calling her name and saw him and John rushing to the edge of the lock where they were obviously hoping for her to moor. Part of her was overjoyed that potentially all their friends had survived, but the other part of her felt guilty and saddened by having to deal with them again. They were her friends, they weren't a chore, but Scully's priority was getting Mulder off the boat, and she was too exhausted for an excited reunion. She wanted to sleep.

But before that, she wanted to not damage the hull of the yacht as they attempted to stop. Eddie was doing his bit outside and Scully was shouting orders at him as loudly as she could. Mulder was unable to help at all. He could not stand. Scully was not sure why the patches had been so ineffective, considering they had worked well on their first trip on the boat the previous year. Perhaps there was something in whatever drugs they had been given by Eddie to keep them asleep that countered the effect of the patches, or made them wear off quicker. Or perhaps Mulder was simply a year older and less able to cope.

She sighed when she heard exclamations of success from outside. Happy that some sort of secure line had been tied holding the boat to the lock she returned her attention to Mulder.

"We're stopped," she whispered, rubbing his cheek to rouse him. He groaned and opened his eyes, and beads of sweat dripped from his forehead and stubbled upper lip. He looked so nauseous he was almost unconscious, she realised, but she was pleased with the small smile she received nonetheless. "I might get Eddie to carry you off, and I'll follow with some fluids. This is the worst you've been, hasn't it?"

"Since forever," he mumbled. "I feel like jelly. I can't-"

"It's okay. That'll pass over the next few hours. You'll still feel like you're moving. Just keep telling yourself that you're not. Try to convince yourself, okay?" He nodded as she used the edge of her shirt to dab at his face.

Eddie returned and lifted Mulder as easily as a normal man would lift a small child, and Scully felt useless merely carrying the first aid kit. They would leave all their things on the boat; presumably they weren't going anywhere for a while, and Eddie knew how important some of their personal possessions were to them. He would not let them leave without those things, Scully was sure of it.

She knew they had an audience but having heard Gibson's voice just minutes earlier she also knew they had probably been informed of Mulder's condition. Scully gave the group a wide berth as Eddie laid Mulder out on the flat sand on his back. Eddie announced to Mulder he was on land and almost immediately Mulder rolled to his side and threw up, pushing himself weakly onto his hands and knees to gag. Scully knelt beside him and rested a hand on his back. She could see his hands clutching at the sand, not because he was sick but because he was trying to balance himself.

She soothed him as a partner and assessed his condition as a doctor, and she knew he needed fluids and supervision. She did not want to give him any more drugs. If part of his condition stemmed from a reaction to drugs he had already been given, she could not know whether giving him anything else would make it worse.

After a short while longer of dry retching, Mulder collapsed back onto the sand and let Scully roll him onto his side away from his vomit so that he was facing her again. She leant over him, blocking his eyes from the harsh afternoon sun, and she was heartened when his eyes connected with hers.

"Still with me?" she asked. He nodded, licking his wet lips and sighing.

"I know what you mean now Scully," he mumbled.

"What's that?" she whispered curiously. He blinked a few times to clear his vision but his voice was certain.

"I'm so over this." Scully shivered as their eyes watched each other. She nodded silently, not sure how to tell him that Gibson was standing just a few metres away listening to every word.

"Squeeze my hand," she urged instead, holding her hand out and watching him take it. His grip was not strong, but it was there, and she laced her fingers through his and pressed their joined hands into the unmoving sand. "We're not moving," she promised. "Feel the anchor?"

"My touchstone," he hissed, tears trickling from his eyes down the side of his face. One pooled on the side of his nose and Scully leant forward to touch her lips there and taste the salt on her tongue. Her heart was thumping painfully against her ribs and suddenly she was the one that felt like the world was tilting. She lay down before her head started spinning and watched Mulder watching her. He looked somewhat shocked but was too sick to object to her closeness, and his eyes drifted to their hands in the sand. Their grip had relaxed, but it indeed showed him that they were not moving.

When he next glanced up at Scully she had her eyes closed and he felt his insides melt at the thought she had fallen asleep so quickly with her back turned towards whoever had helped them moor the boat. Eddie was amongst them, and they hadn't been killed yet, so Mulder did not waste any energy worrying. His gaze flicked between Scully's face and their hands in the sand, and as he slowly re-educated his centre of gravity he let his eyes drift closed for longer periods of time. Half of Mulder knew they were falling asleep on the sand in the open air, but it was strange how easily that concept had returned to them, and how easily they had again embraced it. And if Scully didn't give a shit about the new people behind her, so much so that she turned her back on them and passed out, then he didn't care either. They would make up for it when they were better, in the morning.

xxx 

"Well hello to you too," John mumbled once Gibson announced softly that they were asleep. Scully's long, untamed orange hair was blocking their view of Mulder and they were not pressed together but they were close, so there was no way of telling whether Gibson was telling the truth. Then again he only ever lied to protect people, and John could live with that if sometimes it benefited him.

"You'll have to forgive them," Eddie stated seriously. "I never seen the man so sick and Dana hasn't slept."

"I can't believe it's really them," Skinner whispered. "Are we just gonna leave them there?"

"I could wake them up-"

"No," Gibson instructed, cutting Eddie off. "Leave them. I don't want them to get upset."

"No, you're right," Eddie mumbled. He knew Gibson had figured out already that they shared a gift, and he could see plainly how worried Gibson was for his friends. Eddie was not sure he could say much to reassure the young man, or any of the others for that matter, so he played it cool and did his best. "They'll be better once they wake. It's been pretty stressful and they've come off some heavy meds lately; I'll explain. Uh...maybe we can sit down and talk somewhere? Not too far away. Wouldn't want these two to get swept away by the tide."

xxx 

It was early morning when Scully next opened her heavy eyelids and looked up into Monica's curious, smiling face. Scully's heart skipped but her stomach dove as she fought her contradictory emotions at the sight of her old friend and forced herself to sit. Her head felt fuzzy and she wiped sleep from her eyes before grabbing a fistful of hair from over her shoulder and gently attempting to shake the sand from it.

"You in the mood to hack that off yet?" Monica asked presumptuously. Scully shook her head and let her hair fall away onto her back.

"No, I want to keep it," she mumbled, squinting in the bright sun as Monica grinned. "Hi."

"Hi yourself. You slept way more than twelve hours. Even Mulder beat you up."

"He did?" she gasped, turning around to indeed discover the sand beside her was vacated. "Where is he?" she asked, looking at Monica with wide, blue eyes. "He's okay?"

"He's a little edgy," Monica conceded. "Slow on his feet. But he's eating." Scully exhaled with relief and nodded, managing a soft smile. "So this is a surprise," Monica continued. "Eddie's explained what's going on. Mulder said you wouldn't mind if I came to wake you up because you would want to be a part of the discussion."

"Uh...yeah," Scully sighed, though she really did not feel like talking at all. "I uh, should say hi to everyone. I'm sorry about yesterday but I hadn't-"

"It's okay. Eddie and Mulder told us," Monica promised, pushing herself to her feet and watching Scully do the same. She saw Scully's eyes travel over her lean frame and hesitate briefly on the small belly she was showing. "I'm pregnant again," she added before Scully could ask. She smiled, but Scully only nodded with the passing interest of a doctor and it caused Monica to frown. "Are you feeling okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, yeah fine," Scully sighed, nodding and running her hands through her hair. "I'm just still half-asleep I think. Congratulations."

"Thanks," Monica laughed. "Come on. We want to hear all about Antarctica. Mulder's been very cagey so far this morning."

"Yeah," Scully scoffed. "I can't imagine why." She stalked ahead in front of Monica, ignorant to the fact that Monica had wanted to embrace her in a proper greeting. Monica contented herself with following Scully to the group and watched from a distance as Mulder stretched an arm out for her to sit beside him, which she did. They had a brief conversation, probably about him feeling better, and then she turned her attention downwards and started drawing the infinity symbol repetitively into the sand. Monica could see that Nicky, sitting in front of John, was mimicking her with his small hand, but Scully was so absorbed she barely noticed him.

Something was definitely not right, Monica decided. There was no point putting off the discussion either, she realised. They would be spending a lot of time together again. Gibson obviously knew, and Eddie had revealed that morning that he also knew, and everybody else could obviously see something was wrong. Monica sighed, sitting down beside John and reaching forward to run her fingers affectionately through Nicky's hair to rub his scalp. He turned around and grinned at her with his big, brown eyes and Monica grinned back automatically despite the worry in her mind.

"So what's going on?" she asked once Nicky returned to his sand-drawings. "Dana?"

"What?" Scully asked vaguely, looking up. "What's going on about what?"

"Is something wrong?" Monica pressed. "You've both been really quiet."

"I've only been awake five minutes," she replied with a frown.

"Uh, I think we should stay on topic," Gibson mumbled seriously. "There's a lot going on right now and-"

"What makes it any of your business anyway?" Scully asked, ignoring Gibson.

"You're obviously upset about something," Monica reasoned as calmly as she could, caught off guard by Scully's sudden anger. "I just want to make sure you're both okay."

"We're fine," Scully snapped curtly. "So what's on topic Gibson? Talk."

"Eddie was explaining he wants us to go to Hawaii until the rains pass. He said you would sail or-"

"No chance in hell," Scully insisted, shaking her head. "Mulder can't stomach it and you know what? I'm not going to be responsible for us all drowning in the Pacific Ocean. I'm lucky I didn't kill us getting here and I'm not sailing if it's going to be raining. My father's got better things to do than to spend his time in Heaven helping his screw-up daughter be a captain in the rain on some ancient sailboat with emergency fuel only and no decent lifesaving equipment. Not that there would be much point using it."

"Dana-"

"No Skinner!" she exclaimed. "I won't do it. And don't look at me like somehow we're stuck here because of me now because Eddie knew this before we left and insisted we come anyway."

"I never 'insisted'-"

"Don't start," Scully growled. "You told me you'd take care of the rest if I got us here and by some miracle I got us here, so you take care of it."

"Dana don't you care-"

"Right now I don't give a fuck about anything," she mumbled, standing up and stalking over to the packs she could see in the distance. Somebody had gone onto the yacht and retrieved their personal belongings. That was good, she decided, because it saved her the trouble. She unzipped her orange backpack and found her treasures sitting on the top. She retrieved the Bible and then continued walking until she disappeared behind one of the buildings.

Sinking into the sand and brushing tears off her face, she opened the Bible to the very first page and started reading, trying to block all the facts and feelings from her minds and just focus on the words in front of her.

Back amidst the group, Monica called Mulder's name softly, urging him to lift his eyes to meet hers. He raised his head reluctantly and squinted. His expression was hard to read and he was still pale, but he looked the same as he had when they had last parted, though he needed a haircut just as they all did, and he hadn't shaved in several days, his beard not long but dark against his cheeks and jaw.

"What?" he asked, his voice low and scraping.

"Is she okay?" Monica pressed. Mulder raised his eyebrow sceptically in a gesture once reserved only for Scully.

"Does she look okay to you?" he returned simply. "Do I?"

"No, and it's scaring us," Monica admitted, speaking for the group without consulting them first. She felt the tension in the atmosphere. This sort of reunion was not what any of them had expected. It was frightening and disheartening.

"Well we don't mean to scare you," Mulder mumbled, blushing as he again turned his glance downwards. "We're not the same people."

"Since when?" Skinner asked. Mulder shrugged innocently as he looked at his old boss.

"Dunno. Seems pretty quick but thinking back...it's been leading up to this since day one."

"But what's 'this'?" John asked. "And what the hell are you talkin' about?"

"I'm gonna go find her," Mulder mumbled, cautiously standing until he had his balance. "Excuse me," he added politely, following Scully's footsteps in the sand.

John turned to Gibson and gripped his shoulder forcefully.

"You tell us right now what the hell is going on," he ordered.

"I don't know what to say," Gibson hissed, shrugging John's hand off him and widening his eyes, imploring his older friend to believe him. "All I can say is that they are 'over' it."

"Over what?" Monica asked with a concerned frown.

"This," he answered, his voice cracking. "They're tired. They wanna move on."

"To where?" Skinner asked. Gibson turned his head downwards and again shrugged.

"You don't get it," he mumbled, uncomfortable. "They're tired of living. They helped defeat the supersoldiers. They think they've done everything they can. Mulder's always counted on Scully and she's kept him going but she's not strong enough to do that anymore and...I don't think they can keep going. I heard it when they were ages back coming here. I wanted to see it because I...couldn't picture it."

"Is she depressed?" Skinner asked.

"I don't think that's a very nice word," Gibson whispered. "I don't think it's accurate. She's had a life so full on and scary and painful that most people would have broken down long ago... Mulder too. I uh, I need a walk now." Gibson stood up and walked in the opposite direction before anyone could stop him, even Sarah. He almost ran away, and he was sure by the time he found a building to duck behind that nobody would follow to see him cry.

As much as they wanted to know, Gibson could not tell them that at that moment Scully and Mulder were huddled together behind a similar building sobbing silently into one another because they felt trapped and alone and because they wanted to die. How was Gibson meant to articulate those feelings to their friends without forcing some sort of fight to prevent that? How did he do it without going behind Mulder and Scully's backs when he owed them so much and they trusted him? He couldn't. He could only find his own private space and share their pain from a distance.

Gibson knew how it had happened both quickly and gradually because he had already caught glimpses of the thoughts and situations that had been put upon them which Mulder believed had led to the present. Scully had been struggling with the very resolution since she had been left alone after the invasion, and though she had not had it in her then, time had given her that confidence and had allowed her to find the closure with Mulder she had been missing.

Scully only had to say the words and Mulder would have known it was right. It hadn't been in his mind as much, but spiritually Gibson knew they were on the same level. Mulder would have just known that she spoke for them both. It might have taken him a while to be certain, but Gibson knew it had been his sole thought as he had lain on the boat's couch with seasickness. He had made up his mind and told Scully as soon as possible, on the sand when he had told her he was over it. She had known exactly what he meant because the end had been in her thoughts also. If she'd had the pills in her palm she might have silently handed some to him then and there and swallowed the rest for herself, and nobody else would have known.

The frightening thing for Gibson was the realisation that he would not have stopped her.

He made the decision to walk not back to the group but to Mulder and Scully. He wanted to have a visual representation of what he could hear, and he knew their painful sobs had subsided. Eyes were watching him as he strode purposefully across the sandy landscape to the building Mulder and Scully were huddled behind, but he did not acknowledge the others and he did his best to block their questioning and worried thoughts from his mind.

Scully and Mulder were sitting against the cement building with legs outstretched and tangled as they were turned slightly towards each other. Scully's tear-stained face was tucked under Mulder's chin and neither of them looked surprised to see Gibson round the corner. They watched him silently. Gibson had never seen Mulder look so upset. Not even after Gibson had once told him he would never see Scully alive again. His face was patchy and his eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and Scully's face was no better. She was bright red and silent tears were still trekking slowly down her swollen cheeks. They stared up at him in silence.

"I want you to know," Gibson began softly, wringing his hands together to try to control his nerves. "That I wouldn't stop you. I want you to know that. I...don't want you to suffer."

"Gibson, sweetheart," Scully gushed, sitting up against Mulder's chest and holding an arm out. He dropped forward onto his knees and threw his arms around her neck, breaking down and crying into her shoulder. Mulder wrapped his arms around them both and held them tightly as Scully rubbed Gibson's back and used the last of her energy to comfort her young friend, who she had met when he was just a boy. He had grown into such a good man, and yet she felt like she barely knew him. "Thank you," she wept into his ear. "We know you understand. We just want to go home and sleep."

"I know," he whispered. "And if you...If you can hold on a little longer, I'll try to get you there. I promise."

"Okay," she hissed as they pulled away. She took his face in both hands and smiled widely at him. It was the best smile she had presented anyone since returning. "You're an angel, you know that?" she asked him. He nodded, reaching up to innocently brush tears from his cheeks. "You don't think I'm weak?" she asked as she let him go and watched him attempt to compose himself.

"No," he insisted with wide eyes, shaking his head. "Hell no. You've both been through so much and...I mean if you were still living in Virginia and nothing had changed you'd probably be happy and not like this but...I know what despair is, and I know...people can only handle so much in their time and combined you both have exceeded that for each other and the world and I...I know you're tired."

"It hasn't always been this way," Scully whispered, blushing under the weight of his very accurate yet simple assessment.

"I think underneath it started a long time ago for you both," Gibson replied, catching Mulder's eyes and offering him a small, understanding smile. Mulder nodded in acknowledgement of his comment and turned to stare at Scully, dragging his fingers down the tangled mess of her hair. "You...know how much I love you both, right?" Gibson asked nervously. Scully smiled and nodded, reaching forward for another hug.

"We love you too," she whispered seriously. "But you don't need us anymore."

"Fake it for a little longer and I'll get you home," he repeated. Scully again nodded. She would do anything for the promise of home. She would give everything to be there again.

"Mulder, are we quitting?" she asked, aware Gibson was still in front of them but knowing it wouldn't make a difference. "Would our sisters be proud of us?" Mulder bit his bottom lip at the unexpected addition to her question. Not their parents, not her father, but their sisters. Missy and Samantha. Two women who died young, the victims of tragic circumstance and violent deaths. Two women who had been killed in place of the two adults left behind. Melissa Scully and Samantha Mulder had died so their siblings could survive, and Scully was asking him whether he thought they would view that sacrifice, in hindsight, as a waste.

"I think they've always been proud of us," Mulder whispered, tears trickling again down his cheeks as Scully stared at him, innocently pleading with him for an honest response. He touched her pale cheek tenderly and managed a tearful smile. "For fighting for them, and for not losing hope in ourselves, and for loving ourselves without them, and for finding and loving each other. This doesn't feel like quitting to me, Dana. It feels like...finishing." Scully sobbed as Mulder pulled her into her arms. Gibson watched and heard them both feel so much so intensely it took all his strength not to lose the composure he had finally gathered.

"Take your time," he mumbled as he left to give them some space. They didn't hear him.


	12. Chapter 12

Twelve

 _Hawaii_

"Mulder this might be uneven," Monica mumbled as she stood behind him in the Hawaiian compound. To Mulder, the pale, smooth interior reminded him of Antarctica. They had lighting which he had not been expecting, just as they'd had in Antarctica. The building from the outside looked like a wooden house, but inside it was modern and slick and technologically advanced. When they had woken and explored, the others had been so amazed and intrigued by the whole thing; Mulder and Scully had not even flinched.

The one difference between the compound and what he had left in Antarctica was that there were windows to the outside, and as he sat on a stool in front of one he could look outside to the water and tall grass and vegetation on the nearby hill. He could also see and hear the rain.

"You say that as though you haven't already started cutting," he mumbled, only just able to hear the soft snip of scissors behind him as Monica trimmed his hair. She laughed.

"Okay. Then it 'is' uneven. I'm surprised you haven't kept this up yourself."

"I have, just not in the last few months," he replied.

"Dana hasn't though," Monica countered gently. Scully was a sensitive subject. She was sitting outside under the cover of the veranda, watching the rain and writing in a diary. She had objected to Mulder being rendered unconscious by whatever drug they had been given to get them to Hawaii, but it had been the only real solution if she refused to sail, which she had.

Monica estimated they had been unconscious for less than twelve hours, and she had woken up feeling as though she had simply been asleep. She did not think the drug had caused any problems with her baby and Nicky was also the same happy and chatty boy. Yet according to Mulder and Scully their last exposure to such a drug had involved a much larger quantity and a longer period of sleep, and the recovery had been more worrying.

They had all been awake for three days though, and nobody was suffering any lingering effects. Gibson and Sarah had taken it upon themselves to talk to Eddie and help him with some equipment, and Skinner and Shannon were off exploring in the rain somewhere. Monica and Mulder had been chatting but Monica had gotten the feeling Mulder would have rather been elsewhere, and before he had made an escape she had talked him into letting her cut his shaggy hair.

"How come she doesn't want to?" she asked.

"Scully?" Mulder mumbled, shrugging. "Cut her hair you mean?" Monica hummed. "I dunno. It's long and thick and I suppose she doesn't see the point. I don't mind it long."

"She might look younger if I can take a few inches off. Several inches."

"We don't care about looking young so much anymore," he chuckled. "I still think she's hot, and when she actually brushes it, it's nice."

"Are you treating her for depression?" Monica asked seriously. Mulder pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes in thought as his body tensed. Monica noticed and rested her hands on his shoulders, rubbing them briefly in an effort to calm him. "I don't mean-"

"I know what you mean," he huffed.

"Should we be as worried as we are? I suppose I just want to know if there's anything we can do to help because it seems like she is driving this melancholy atmosphere here. You don't seem...as bad."

"She's my partner. I don't treat her as a psychologist," he answered. "And she's not depressed. Neither am I. Emotionally I have been where she is before, so I handle it better, and I hide it better. Scully, much as I love her, she has never been able to hide her emotions. She's confused me with them, but she's never hidden them. At least not well."

"But now that it's raining and things are being...replaced outside, will that help?"

"I think it will make it worse."

"But it's proof that we can move past this," Monica insisted hopefully. "It's proof that we can start to survive again, somewhere tolerable, and that we can continue to exist."

"Is that what it was like in the colony?" Mulder asked.

"Yeah," Monica answered, walking around from behind him and leaning against the bench, bracing herself with her hands either side of her waist. Mulder looked up at her from his chair with a thoughtful but otherwise blank expression on his face. "What was it like in Antarctica?"

"When we were home it felt like home, and we were able to be comfortable there, but everywhere else it was surreal, sterile, and kind of sad. We were in limbo. We worked long hours because there was nothing else to do. I usually helped Scully and Eddie in the labs."

"So being here now should be a huge improvement, right?" Monica asked. Mulder shook his head. "Why not?"

"You said you can continue to exist here, but we can't. You can stay here and raise your kids, and Skinner and Shannon are only just starting their relationship, and Gibson and Sarah are young and could do anything, and they could be great leaders, but we've had our shot at all that, and we don't have kids or a future to look forward to other than a future of aging."

"What are you saying then?" Monica asked, confused. Her voice was soft as she struggled to understand. She remembered what Gibson had said that first afternoon. She heard his words over and over again inside her head when she let herself. 'They're tired of living. They want to move on.'

They looked tired, but Monica did not want to think about what Gibson had really meant. It was beyond her comprehension of who she knew Mulder and Scully to be; stronger than that.

"I don't know what I'm saying," Mulder answered, coy but modest. "Just that...all this is probably bringing back more memories of a world we're sad to have lost rather than giving us hope for some kind of new and exciting future."

"Mulder, forgive me," Monica whispered. "But it sounds like you're depressed, and it's okay if you are, but-"

"It's totally the opposite," Mulder insisted, sitting up straighter and staring at her with wise, brown eyes. "In Antarctica we came to a gradual realisation that we were working on a project that would be the sum of all our work, and we got to experience and know about things that on the X Files I only used to dream about. When I go to sleep at night, and when I wake up, I look at Scully and I don't feel sad or helpless or dismal. I feel as though I have accomplished everything in my life that I wanted to, and I feel complete. I don't know how long a person can feel like that before something changes and I don't want it to change. I want that feeling to stay forever. Scully's similar, but she's incredibly homesick."

"Homesick," Monica echoed sceptically.

"Her family," Mulder whispered. "Our house in Virginia. She misses those things, but she also misses who she was, who I was. I miss those people too. We're still here and I would never change anything but we've had a lot of time to reminisce, and some memories evoke stronger emotions than others."

"We're all homesick," she defended. "We all have those memories."

"Scully and I are older-"

"Not by much, and John is older than you both-"

"No, not old out here," he corrected. He held a hand over his heart. "Old in here. We have lived a thousand lives, or at least it feels that way."

"Are you going to kill yourselves?" Monica asked bluntly, not taking her eyes from his.

"I don't know," Mulder lied simply. "That's undecided."

"Well will you be here when the baby comes?"

"I don't know," he repeated. Monica frowned, sighing audibly. "Mon don't take this the wrong way, but being there when Nicky was born just about broke Scully's heart. I'm not sure she could actually do it again. I don't think she's strong enough."

"So in a year you've aged a few decades," Monica reasoned curiously. "What if these feelings of being done and complete are just some sort of subconscious denial about the fact that you can't see yourself with a future here, and what if you DO have a future here? What if we think you could? Doesn't that mean anything?"

"I don't want a future here," Mulder admitted honestly, watching her carefully as her face paled and her fingers gripped the bench. "I don't want to spend my days hanging out with Skinner or worrying about whether or not Gibson can hear me make love to my wife or playing with kids and having to look up to see that look of longing in Scully's eyes that makes me want to go back fifteen years and change everything."

"What do you want then?" Monica asked, her voice barely above a whisper as tears gathered in her eyes.

"I want..." Mulder drifted off, thinking carefully before he answered. "A lifetime supply of sunflower seeds." Monica laughed at the sudden misdirection and shook her head as Mulder grinned and shrugged innocently. What did he expect her to say? He giggled when she reached for a nearby towel and flicked him about the head.

"What's going on?" Scully asked from the doorway. Mulder turned and grinned widely at her, pointing to his head.

"Like the new style?" he asked. Scully chuckled and walked forward, standing behind him and running her fingers through his springy hair. She hummed appreciatively, pecking his temple and wrapping her arms around him to lean against him from behind. Her orange hair fell thickly over her shoulder and tickled Mulder's cheek and upper arm and he pulled her closer, breathing in her clean scent.

"Very nice Monica," she complimented. "That should keep it out of his eyes a while longer."

"Mulder was just telling me he was looking forward to some sunflower seeds," Monica replied. "What are you looking forward to?"

"Dancing," Scully answered without hesitating. Monica smiled tightly and excused herself to go to the bathroom, and Scully leant her head closer to Mulder's ear. "Bet you don't know why I keep saying that," she taunted softly.

"We haven't danced in a long time," he mumbled in reply. She giggled, capturing his earlobe in her lips briefly and enjoying his soft gasp.

"Remember your zombie theory?" she asked. "First they eat and drink, then dance and make love." Mulder smiled and leaned his head closer to hers. He wrapped his arms around himself and her, holding her against him and allowing her to tangle her own arms through his. When he was younger he never could have predicted how it would be when he found the woman he was meant to share his life with. There was not even a question of Scully's place beside him. Perhaps if the world had never changed they would have grown apart, but maybe not. Mulder had never wanted to part from her and she had always stayed with him despite numerous opportunities to leave. He would have held on forever. Just as he was now, he realised.

"Is that how you want it to be for us?" he asked, his voice cracking as Scully let her lips drift over his freshly shaved cheek. She nodded silently against him, her breathing thickened by unshed tears clogging her sinuses. "Sit," he whispered, turning in the chair until he found the hem of her shirt. Scully walked around and straddled him in the chair comfortably as Mulder sought out her forehead and tenderly rested his against hers, nuzzling her nose and pecking her lips intermittently. "Sounds good to me," he assured her, aware she was waiting for an answer.

"Good," she hissed. "Because besides swimming in the ocean, it's the last thing on my list. What's on your list?"

"Just you," he whispered hurriedly, taking her lips in a firm, insistent kiss that left them both moaning hungrily into one another's mouths. Scully was not sure what Monica and Mulder had been talking about, but considering the way Monica had rushed out and how confident Mulder suddenly felt Scully had a good idea part of it had involved her. Every morning they woke up together Mulder looked a little bit more secure in the knowledge that they were a day closer to some sort of conclusion, and suddenly as he kissed her so fervently she knew that it had all clicked inside him. He was just as ready as she was.

They had given the world and each other everything they had, and there was nothing left to do but surrender. The idea did not feel nearly as shameful as Scully had always imagined.

xxx 

"This is amazing," Monica gushed as she, Shannon and Eddie walked across the grass towards the sound of unfamiliar bird calls as dusk fell over their island. "I can't believe there are birds. Eddie, this is...incredible."

"Why so incredible?" he asked. "We've had these genetics for a very long time. These birds were saved from Antarctica. It's not so hard to return."

"But you can't just make it how it was, right? This is all...I mean it's new."

"The populations are beginning again," he confirmed. "The only mature species here are you lot. That's why we're keeping the rest of you in the processing centre until the ecosystem here is stable enough to cope. I want to monitor the other populations here to make sure they can reproduce in the wild. We'll set up the research stations and better residencies and then the rest of the humans can come."

"What about the United States?" Shannon asked carefully. "You said you were granted that territory also?"

"By request I've ordered the east to be cleared first. Most buildings will be taken down to prepare the land for its return to a wilderness state. I don't anticipate any humans travelling there for many generations, but on these islands I can provide everything you'll need. You've already got water and sanitation and electricity."

"Certainly more than we've had for a very long time," Monica assured him gratefully.

"My aim here isn't to study you but to help preserve something I'm passionate about, so I won't be leaving you to fend for yourselves as you did in the colonies."

"Did Dana ever secure the medicines I asked her to?" Shannon asked.

"Yes and once they were unconscious we were able to salvage most."

"Unconscious?" Monica asked.

"For their own safety. I guess you'd call it favouritism, and Dana had been about to ask me for permission for her and Mulder to return to America when the turbulence began."

"They wanted to come back?" Shannon asked. "To where?"

"One of the colonies. Dana thought she deserved to be a doctor there."

"Would you have said yes?"

"If I thought it would have brought them any happiness. As it was, I believe she was seeking an alternative to their lifestyle that was more real or human, but I don't think it would have made her or Mulder very happy. They had a much more comfortable life in Antarctica."

"I just don't get it," Monica sighed, running her hands through her dark brown hair. "This morning I stood there and listened to Mulder state very certainly that he did not want a future here, as though making that sort of decision was simple. They should not be this tired, like everyone keeps saying they are. Physically they are in perfect health. To me they're emotionally drained, but I would have thought someplace like this, where everything is renewed, would be a good thing?"

"Dana was like this before," Shannon pointed out gently. "When she was recovering from the injury she inflicted onto her wrist. Actually she's in better shape now because she has Mulder and neither is physically hurt."

"Well what can we do?" Monica pressed. "I don't want to lose them. They're some of my best friends, and there's no reason for them to feel this way. We've all been down and they're entitled to that, but we can't let them just give up."

"They've done a very good thing," Eddie added. "They told us about the extra magnetite deposits and Dana helped develop the material that initiated the demise of the supersoldiers using her science and our equipment. Without Shannon's efforts and theirs, we could not be here right now. I never would have convinced those above me to let me return without being able to refer to them. It's likely you all would have been killed in the colony, either by us or one of your diseases."

"We could still succumb to those things," Monica told him. He laughed and shook his head.

"Narr, Monica. I guess they haven't told you, but Dana was in charge of guarding our stores of medical treatments, and we saved those. The only things we can't do anything about are a stroke or a sudden massive heart attack. And old age, of course. I'm confident that as long as you remain top of the food chain on this island you will all prosper for your lives. Your children, too."

"That's all I could have ever really asked for," Monica sighed. "Are you in charge of that? Or is Dana?"

"I am. While she was working hard on the supersoldier treatment I was brushing up on human diagnosis and treatment using human medicine. We would do things differently because of the resources available to us, with a higher success rate, but I needed to be able to explain stuff to people in terms they'd understand, you know?" Monica nodded. "Dana says I'd pass any medical exam with my knowledge; I just lack practical experience."

"Certainly something Dana doesn't lack," Shannon chuckled.

"Which is why she would be needed here," Monica insisted with a sigh. "We have all been through so much and in so many ways they've had the last year easy compared to us. Easy! Now it's all changing again and they're the ones that have always been stable and solid and people we can count on. Eddie you're saying we have to rebuild the world, and you're offering us a lot of assistance which is amazing and I'm still trying to grasp the concept that there is water on this grass beneath my feet, but I...Who's going to lead if they're not here?"

"They're not leaders," Eddie replied seriously. "They've excelled in their fields, and they've led in terms of their work, but they are too insulated to lead a larger group. They're introverts, they don't like listening to other people's mundane problems outside the practice of their careers, and they would prefer each other's company to anybody else's, to the point where they will actively enclose themselves in a space where nobody else can communicate with them. You think that's what makes a good leader?"

"Well, no," Monica resigned. "But surely this can't work without some sort of social organisation."

"We'll deal with that when it comes," Eddie promised her. "After speaking with you all, I would like Shannon and Walter to assume some temporary responsibilities. I prefer to stay in the background. I'm a scientist; not a politician."

"How come they don't want you back then?" Monica asked. "If you're such a big scientist where you're from, and you have this plague that's going to cause you all to die off, why don't they want you working on that?"

"That was my job here," Eddie chuckled. "I must admit I've never had an interest in reproducing myself and always assumed I would die without, and I think they know that. Better to have me out of the way, than slowing them down." Monica laughed. "What?"

"I think you just described the FBI's opinion of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully," she teased. "Maybe that's why you get on with them so well."

"I was very glad to meet them," he agreed. "They've uncovered amazing things in their lifetimes. They would tell me stories sometimes. Pretty cool. Where I'm from, there's no such diversity as loch monsters or parasitic spores or even different coloured skins. Although I do understand the shape-shifting; after all that's what I'm doing now."

"So this technology you're providing us," Shannon continued seriously. "You'll teach us how to do it?"

"I'll provide you with what you need," he promised. "It isn't hard, just different to what you're used to. Everyone will need to take on different roles but we have some others from Antarctica who have been working in those roles for a long time and who can help train."

"Humans?" Shannon asked.

"Yes," Eddie confirmed. "Mulder and Dana can confirm that. Dana examined them all upon her arrival and they were regulars on Mulder's basketball court. They're all middle-aged men, so have no children to pass these things onto, but they will be happy to be home also."

"Do Mulder and Scully know their friends have survived?" Monica asked.

"They were not friends," Eddie answered with a smirk. "I was their only real friend there. They were respected, don't get me wrong, but with Dana the only female and with her superior position and striking features she was a source of some suspicion. Mulder was just happy to do his own thing. But he did well to get everyone together for the odd game."

"From what I know of Mulder, that's somewhat of a miracle," Shannon taunted dryly.

"Could we set up a hoop or something?" Monica asked hopefully. "Maybe that will bring them out of their shell?" Eddie hummed, thoughtful.

"I'm not sure about basketball, but since we've got so much grass now I might be able to dodgy-up a baseball bat."

"Dodgy-up?" Monica laughed. "Very scientific of you Eddie." Eddie shrugged casually.

"You start talkin' sports and I loosen up, Monica," he drawled, pretending to dribble a few steps ahead. "Anyway, from what I know of John, I reckon you'd have a better chance of convincing him you're okay to play baseball five months pregnant compared to running around on a hard basketball court."

"They're gonna put me in the outfield anyway," she laughed. "But okay, you're on. If I convince John to let me play, you find a bat and a ball."

"I don't have to look very far," Eddie chuckled. "Mulder had a set in Antarctica. I nicked it when I went back."

"What were you doing with a baseball bat in Antarctica?" Shannon asked. "Did you play indoors or something?"

"Uh," Eddie hesitated as Monica and Shannon instantly shared a suspicious glance at one another, Shannon smirking while Monica raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, somethin' like that."

xxx 

"Batter up!" Skinner called from the pitcher's mound, which was really the flattened baseball cap which had travelled with him since the invasion. The grass beneath their bare feet was soft and moist from the early morning rain and the night dew. It was dark, and stars filled the black sky above them, but the grassed area had been lit by a small, cordless sphere Eddie had thrown up onto the gutter of the nearby house. Only Mulder and Scully did not seem to care that there were no actual lights. They took the light purely for granted, but Skinner understood they had been living with such power for more than a year. He was sure when they had first arrived in Antarctica they had been just as intrigued.

Everyone was spread out on the grass and eager to keep the game moving. Sarah was sitting beside Monica playing with Nicky and following the game by ear. They had split the remaining seven into teams of three and four, and for the time being it was men versus women. It sounded like more of a disadvantage than it actually was, because Shannon had no trouble hitting a home run every time she stepped up to bat.

Though she had been nice about it and the ball never went too far away; she was just faster and nobody was game to step in her way. Mulder suspected if they did step in her way she wouldn't hurt them as much as she might had she been in full supersoldier mentality. To him she seemed just as human as she had when they had met on the steps to the Lincoln Memorial. Mulder hoped that overriding of her strength as a supersoldier continued; he liked her much better as a human. She was fun.

As Scully answered Skinner's call and walked forward to retrieve the abandoned bat, Mulder wolf-whistled from his position catching at third base.

"Swing with the hips Scully!" Mulder shouted when he saw Scully procrastinate by readjusting her grip on the bat before she stepped to the second hat in the grass. Skinner was pitching, John was at second base and Mulder third, so she only really had to get to Gibson. Gibson had not been exposed to a lot of sports and frankly he was an easy first. They had chosen him to be on first base on purpose, in an attempt to give the girls a 'fair go'. Considering Monica had struck out and Shannon got a home run, none of them had needed to do much work in the field. Mulder knew Scully could change that once she relaxed.

"Shouldn't you be telling me not to do that?" Scully called back loudly as she got into position. "You know this was much more fun last time!"

"Yeah, well that's life!" he laughed.

"What was last time?" John asked, taunting playfully just as Skinner hushed them.

Scully swung at Skinner's pitch and missed, though not by much. Shannon fielded the ball somewhere behind her and threw it back to her boyfriend.

"Strike one!" she called as she did so. Scully growled in the back of her throat and Shannon heard her, laughing and patting her on the back. "Drop it at your feet," she mumbled.

"Hey, no tips!" Gibson exclaimed loudly.

"She's on my team!" Shannon retorted, slinking back down into her catcher's position.

The second pitch was a dolly from Skinner, who Scully knew just wanted her to hit it to feel good about herself. She humoured him, batting it gently onto the grass a metre from her and taking off to first base. She glanced over her shoulder as her foot skidded into the grass beside Gibson's hat and saw Skinner turning with the ball and throwing it at Gibson. If it had been anyone else at first base Scully would not have taken him on, but she continued to John at second base and was safe before he caught the ball. They were playing with bare hands and the ball was wet, so really Scully knew they were doing well to keep up with her. She probably could have taken on third base, but she did not want Mulder to get her out.

"So you a baseball fan Scully?" John asked. "This is fun."

"Yeah, not a bad way to spend the night," she agreed. "Never used to be a fan. Found myself converted a few years back. I'm not very good though."

"Better than Monica," John mumbled under his breath, chuckling when Scully laughed.

"Come on Mon!" she called enthusiastically when she saw Monica step up and get ready to bat again. "You gotta get me home here!"

"Hey! You've all had a turn!" Mulder replied. "Isn't it our go now?"

"I'll hit it this time, I promise!" Monica laughed. "Skinner pitch it properly this time okay? I'm not gonna break. It's not MY fault I struck out." Skinner smirked, throwing her another underarm dolly. She copied what Scully had done and with her added height the ball dropped faster and skidded along the ground past Skinner. She and Scully ran at the same time.

"Skinner, to me!" Mulder shouted early. Skinner scooped up the ball just a few metres from third base and lobbed it quickly to Mulder. It was in his hands half a second before Scully crashed into him and she groaned when she saw him holding it. He was grinning widely and running his fingers over the seam. "Think you're out, beautiful," he teased.

"Why didn't you send it to first?" she asked.

"Cos I'm a better catch," Mulder explained. "And I love that pouty expression you've got on right now." Scully glared at him playfully. "Okay, change over!"

xxx 

"I'm exhausted!" Scully exclaimed as she collapsed onto her back on the bed. Mulder removed his t-shirt and chuckled, running fingers through his hair. He found Scully's brush on their small table and handed it to her as she reluctantly pushed herself back up.

"You know what they were trying to do right?" he asked.

"Oh yeah," she assured him, chuckling. "They think if we're having fun with them we'll think about staying differently."

"And do you?" Mulder asked curiously. She shrugged, shaking her head. "Yeah, me neither."

"But they're our friends, and I think they know-"

"I all but told Monica this morning," Mulder conceded as she took the ponytail out of her hair and began running the brush through it. "I couldn't lie when she asked me. She knows."

"It really is beautiful here and I could stay and be comfortable, but it's not where I want to be. As callous as this sounds Mulder, to me all this is just another 'open room', it's another Antarctica with grass and rain and birds, and knowing what I know of the world, I don't want this. Not for the next thirty years of my life."

"For how much longer?" he asked.

"However long it takes until Gibson and Eddie say we can go. Eddie told me he's working on it and I believe him, and Gibson also promised to help... I hope it's not long, because it is going to be hard to say goodbye. It might be the hardest thing we ever have to do but...it's the right thing to do. What about you? Are you having second thoughts? It's okay if you are-"

"No, no second thoughts," he assured her. "But we are being watched very closely here. As much as Eddie and Gibson want to help us, I think there might be stalling tactics employed."

"They know better than that. They know we don't have to wait for them. We don't need their permission. All we're trying to do is get off this island so we're not a burden. I don't want Monica or Skinner to have to...see us, to have to deal with our bodies. I don't want Gibson to listen to our last words together. I want privacy. Dignity. I think we deserve that."

"We'll get it," Mulder promised. "Because I'm not letting either of us do anything until we're off this island. Even if we have to run away ourselves and leave a note or something, I completely agree we can't burden them, and I want time alone with you before...before we...take that next step. I want us to be alone."

"Are you scared?" Scully asked softly. Mulder bit his plump, lower lip and nodded and she smiled at him warmly. "I go through stages of not wanting to do it, you know."

"Me too," he whispered. "But when I was talking to Monica, she asked me if I wanted to stay and I said I had no future here. She was devastated but as I was explaining why to her I realised I was telling the truth. I really meant it. You and I do not have a future on this island. And if something happened to you I don't want to be left alone here, and I don't want to get old here, and you know what else?" Scully raised an expectant eyebrow in a gesture he knew by heart. "Eddie brought all those cures and shit with him. People are going to be helped to survive. What is there for you to do as a doctor if that's true? And what would that mean for us? For how long would we fall into the trap of keeping ourselves alive when clearly our...our hearts are exhausted and it would be so...nice...to fall asleep with you one more time."

"Don't," Scully whispered. "You'll make me cry." Mulder chuckled.

"We've got some time," he promised. "And you know what? It's not the end. Just the physical end. You know when you slit your wrist and you told me later you'd felt my arms around you? I think that's how it will be. We will know we are still together. We'll be able to feel each other side by side and in each other's arms and we'll hold on forever without, you know, having to get out of bed to brush our teeth or take a whizz." Scully laughed and threw her brush loosely in his direction. He dove to his right and caught it, giggling when she stood and walked over to him. He hunched as she threw her arms around his neck and pressed a wet, noisy kiss to his rough cheek.

"So charming," she teased. "How do you know that's not just a nice dream, Mulder?"

"Because in those nights we were apart I would dream that I was holding you, and it was always so real and you know I think I really was with you. You're my everything, and I'll never leave you." Tears filled Scully's eyes as she nodded and mouthed 'me too', too emotional to speak. Mulder smiled and eased her carefully away from him. He handed her the brush back. "I'll be right back," he promised in a whisper. She nodded and offered him a composed 'I'm-fine' smile. She returned to sit on the bed and brush her thick hair. It took much longer than it had before the invasion, since there was so much more of it than Mulder ever remembered from back then. Not that he minded. He loved tangling his hands in it.

He hurried to the bathroom, preoccupied with the thought of kissing Scully when he got back to his bedroom, but his fantasy and journey were stopped by John, who was just coming out.

"Hey, great game tonight," John assured him. "You off to bed?"

"Yeah, we're wiped," Mulder chuckled as they passed. "See you in the morning."

"If you say so," John hummed. Mulder heard him and stopped outside the door to the bathroom, turning to look over his shoulder. John had also stopped to see if his words had any effect and they met each other's eyes calmly and seriously. "Monica told me what you said. You better say goodbye you know? And not with baseball. We expect real words."

Mulder hesitated. When the time came to leave he was not sure that either he or Scully would be able to manage anything comprehendible. Perhaps a gesture or a hug goodnight, as hopefully they would leave in the dead of night. Mulder did not want a scene. He did not want a big, soppy goodbye where everybody cried and told him he wished they would reconsider. That would be too much. He knew Scully would not want that either. Mulder nodded to John and silently crossed his chest, not giving any words he would later take back.

"Dana sure can hit once she warms up. Did you teach her?" John asked, accepting the silent promise and offering a cordial thank you by way of friendly compliment.

"Yeah I did," Mulder replied with a much warmer smile, easily recalling that night on the baseball field and how Scully had felt in his arms, and how she had laughed with delight at the height and distance of the balls they had hit together. She had not matched that in the game just passed, but she had hit some decent balls. Mulder knew Skinner, John and Gibson had been surprised and impressed by her strength. Scully had grinned proudly, and Mulder's heart had thumped with his own barely constrained pride. He liked that she could still be happy, because he was still happy. It was something he did not think the others understood.

"Well she's got a good eye," John complimented. "G'night to you both." Mulder smiled and told John he would pass on the comment. He thought he might add something smart about him being a damn good teacher too. That would earn him a laugh. Or maybe a pillow fight.


	13. Chapter 13

Thirteen

Scully opened her eyes and smiled when she saw the posters on the familiar grey wall. This dream again, she thought to herself. A part of her knew it was not real, but she was not afraid of the dream and she relaxed in it. No matter how it sometimes ended she liked how it started, and she would never fully comprehend or remember the endings until she woke. They weren't all bad. The start was always fabulous.

The posters tacked to the cork board on the wall that greeted her from her sleep were of basketball players. She knew that had not always been the case. Playboy posters of bikini-clad leggy brunettes had been there once. Without remembering any conversation about them, they had been taken down, or tacked over, with posters less offensive.

The room was small but familiar. A desk piled high with textbooks was not far from her. Papers were scattered all over the rest of the desk and chair. There was no room for a lamp. The rest of the bedroom had gotten considerably cleaner; she suspected it was also because she had started staying over.

Scully wasn't sure, because she had no memory of the lifetime, but she thought she practically lived in his dorm room. She just knew they saw each other whenever they could after classes, overnight, on holidays. She wondered if Christmas was close and whether he would like to meet her family. Had she told them about him? What would her sister say?

She wondered what Mulder would say when she rolled over to greet him for the day. He always said something funny or cute or romantic. She could not believe how wonderful she felt, how safe and how adored. She had never expected to fall for somebody in college. She had expected to date a little, but to find 'the one' so young; that was not her, it was not something she had actively sought in her life so far, but he was asleep beside her and she was in his college dorm for the thousandth time that year and they were together and she was in love with him.

It was scary but amazing. She could see everything when she closed her eyes. She could see them older, getting married, having kids with her red hair which stuck up in every direction just like his. A little boy, she liked the name William, or a little girl, Samantha or Melissa. Pretty names. Pretty little children. Maybe with his brown hair and her blue eyes. And she would be a surgeon with a big office in a big hospital who could work regular daytime hours so she could tuck her babies into bed, go over some surgical notes for the next day and then cuddle up to Mulder each night.

Scully could not tell anyone her fantasy but Mulder. Even her sister would laugh at something so out of character, but Mulder already knew it. It would have been crazy to tell him something so steeped in the idea of commitment when they were so young, with young men not necessarily known for their willingness to commit, but he was the one who had brought it up. He was the one who had asked her. She was the one who had stuttered.

They just knew. They had only been going out a year but they just knew they would be together forever, and she felt so content she wanted to cry when she thought of it. She loved waking up in his dingy dorm room.

Let's get this dream moving, Dana. You know it never ends there.

Scully sighed and reached up to run her hand along the long, wavy red hair that lay over her shoulder and chest. She was on her side facing away from him, and she smiled when she rolled over to where he was lying beside her. He was turned towards her, and she remembered they had fallen asleep spooned together. They had barely moved.

She reached out to cup his jaw and stroked her small thumb over the dark stubble there.

"It's morning, Mulder," she whispered. "Sweetheart, you'll be late for class."

He did not respond and as Scully's thumb stopped against his jaw she let the rest of her fingers on that hand press more firmly to the underside of his jaw and drift to the spot where she often felt his pulse racing with her lips when they pressed there. It was the medical student in her, and perhaps she was overreacting because he was warm, but he did look very still and she realised with a sudden pang of angst that she had not been aware of the sound of his usually heavy but relaxed breathing in the room.

Scully held her breath and tried to be as quiet as possible to listen for it as she continued to try to feel the force of his soul drumming beneath her fingers.

She failed.

But he was warm. She sat up in bed wearing nothing but one of his New York Knicks t-shirts and pulled the sheet down to reveal his bare chest, smooth but for a trickle of light brown hair. She rolled him onto his back with a palm over the left of his chest. She did not call his name. She leant over and rested her ear to his chest as her heart began beating at least ten times its normal speed.

"Mulder," she whispered, squeezing his hand with as much strength as she could muster. She was small compared to his large, six-foot-plus athletic frame, but he offered nothing in reply to her touch. He was completely non-responsive. She leant forward and opened his eyes. All the air was forced out of her lungs when saw only lifeless irises and bloodshot whites. Lifeless irises, she repeated to herself. Lifeless. Dead. He was dead.

He was DEAD.

"Mulder," she wept, her voice again soft as she ran her fingers through his hair and tugged. She was trying to rouse him when she knew she couldn't. She knew death. She spent half her time in the university morgue and at the county morgue and she was topping all of her classes. And her boyfriend was dead, but still warm, but trying to resuscitate him would be useless because she had been awake for long minutes contemplating her happiness before rolling over, and she had not heard his breath once in that time. He could not be saved.

Scully did not know what to do as panic overcame her. She did not care that she was in bed with a dead body with just two pieces of clothing between them; her shirt which was really his and his boxers. But she cared about his family. What was she going to tell his parents? She had only met them once. And what would she tell hers?

Mum, dad, I met the man of my dreams and we've been seeing each other for a year but this morning he died and I don't know what to do because nobody else will ever compare and I want to die because my heart is breaking and the last thing he said to me was 'I love you'.

Yeah, that'd fly, she thought sarcastically as hot tears trickled down her flushed cheeks. She was just a kid. Mulder was just a kid. It wasn't fair. Medical school meant nothing without him. Life meant nothing. How could he be dead? He was still warm. He had been just fine when they had gone to bed. She wanted him to breathe. She wanted to feel his pulse beneath her touch and inside her. She wanted to see life in his eyes. She didn't want to be left behind.

"Mulder," she cried as she shook his shoulders, leaning over him. His head moved loosely on his neck and his hair flopped about against his forehead with the motion but he did not stir. "Mulder!" she insisted.

She HAD to wake him up. She had to. He wasn't dead. He was warm. He had to breathe. He had to breathe against her lips as he kissed her. He had to open his eyes so he could see her say she loved him. He wasn't dead. She would die if he was. Her heart was already shattering like a thin slate of ice burdened by too much weight. The pieces were sharp and painful and caused her to bleed internally so fast that she would die soon too. She could not lose him. That was not how it was supposed to be. But he wasn't dead. He wasn't. He wasn't!

"MULDER!"

xxx 

Mulder had been stirred from his own dream, one which had not yet turned sinister, by the feeling of Scully's head shifting from side to side on her pillow and her hair brushing against his cheek. The window beside them let in the starlight and he could just make out the tears on her cheeks. He could hear her whimpers. She had not taken anything to stop the dreams that night, he remembered. They had kissed for a while and cuddled and fallen asleep, but that meant nothing in the dead of night when their subconsciouses were most vulnerable.

"Dana," Mulder whispered, reaching out to tenderly touch her cheek in an effort not to startle her awake. That was never a good idea. Mulder liked to be dragged from his dreams, but Scully did not. She settled much more quickly if she was able to wake up on her own with only gentle urgings on his part. "Honey," he tried again. She opened her mouth and expelled a brief but loud cry of pain and he wondered what she was dreaming about. He let his hand rest on her forehead and sighed at the thick sheen of sweat he found there, the roots of her hair damp and curled by the moisture.

Suddenly she turned on her side away from him and Mulder sat up as she pressed herself close to the wall and started slamming her open palm into it.

"No-no-no-no," she mumbled. She was crying. Mulder shook her shoulder gently and reached over to draw her hair out of her face. She spluttered as he pulled a few strands from her mouth.

"Scully, wake up," he ordered, his voice firm but soft.

"Wake up, wake up," she repeated. Mulder smiled sadly. It was reassuring to know that his voice was getting through to her, but considering the tone in which she spoke he knew that whoever she was speaking to in the dream was not going to wake up. She was trying to raise the dead, and in all their shared nightmares they had never achieved such a feat. "Mulder," she sobbed suddenly, and he leant over and rested his forehead to her shoulder.

"Dana, wake up," he repeated. "You're dreaming. It's not real. Wake up."

"NO! MULDER, NO, NO WAKE UP, NO!"

Mulder gave up on the gentle approach when her nightmare transformed into what he deemed to be a night terror. He'd had them often in his own life, and thanks to the X Files or perhaps simply life with him Scully had also acquired the ability to live her dreams so acutely that in those moments they were wholly real.

He pulled her forcefully onto his lap as she continued to cry and call his name. She did not struggle, acquiescent to his touch, but he held her arms down so that she could not struggle when she did wake up. He tucked her head under his chin just as he had thousands of times before, enfolding her. He rocked her as her pleading screams faded into steady sobs and when he heard her rake in a choked, desperate but deep breath of air he knew she had woken.

Before he could say anything the door crashed open behind them and light streamed in from three different torches. Mulder stared directly into the blinding light as Scully instinctively turned her head away and burrowed it deeper into the darkness of his sweaty, bare chest.

"What the fuck?" Skinner asked. "Jesus we thought you-"

"Shh," Mulder whispered calmly, still rocking Scully as she cried. "Just a nightmare." Skinner ran a hand over his bald head in relief as the lights dropped away from Mulder's face to focus on the ground and give the room a more general dim glow. Mulder heard another pair of footsteps and once able to focus on the shadowy figures barring his doorway he realised Skinner, Shannon, John and Monica were all crowded around the space. "Walls are pretty thin huh?" he asked affectionately as Scully's sobs subsided and she went limp in his arms. "Sorry to wake you up."

"No, no, that's totally okay," Skinner insisted gently and without hesitation. "We thought something had happened to you, that's all."

"Nothing's gonna happen to me," he promised, turning his head down towards Scully and pressing his lips to the part of her hair. "Nothing's gonna happen to me."

xxx 

Scully gripped Mulder's hand tightly later that morning when the sun was up and they could hide in their room no longer. She was hungry. Mulder took that as a good sign. Unfortunately she remembered every last second of her dream and had spent the time after they had been left alone recounting it to him, and then neither of them had slept very well, constantly waking up to check on the other. Mulder had no problem with Scully's grip on his hand as they faced their friends, because he was holding on just as tightly.

Scully had taken the time to make herself look nice, even loosely braiding her hair and putting on a fresh pair of jeans. Mulder understood the desire to recover some dignity. In the spirit of sharing he had told her what she had screamed and what their friends had feared. Though Mulder was not quite sure what they all thought had really happened. Had they thought he had gone ahead and killed himself without speaking to her, or by accident, or that she had euthanized him and then had a change of heart? Or had they thought he had simply died of inexplicable natural causes, just as he had in her dream?

He shivered, and Scully held his fingers tighter.

"Mor-ning," Gibson sang as they walked into the kitchen area. All eyes turned their way. Even Nicky looked up at them. Mulder managed a tired smile but Scully's eyes flitted around only briefly before returning to the floor a metre or two ahead of her. "So you don't wanna talk about it then?" he asked.

"You already know," Mulder replied with a teasing, tense smile.

"Sorry," Scully apologised, glancing up and catching Gibson's querying eyes. "It's a recurring dream that always ends differently and uh, that one won't happen again. I hope."

"I think it's cute," he assured her with a grin. "The start anyway."

"Oh well uh, my subconscious thanks you I suppose," she mumbled. He laughed and it helped to relax her. She let go of Mulder's hand and reached for a red apple from the collection on the bench. "I'm really sorry I woke everyone up."

"Don't worry about it," Monica promised from her chair next to Nicky as she tried to get him to eat his breakfast. "We all have bad dreams. How long have you been having that one for? They can be messages, you know."

"Oh it's a message all right," Scully sighed, sitting down into a chair opposite her as Mulder went in search of glasses of water. He found two freshly filled bottles and handed one to Scully before taking a seat beside her and resting his head in his hands on the table, shutting his eyes for a few extra seconds of naptime. Scully drank half a bottle in seconds and then sighed once more. It was obvious everyone was waiting for her to give them something. It did not have to be much, but Monica was curious and what was the harm, she wondered? It did not matter if she shared her dream with them. She would not be around much longer anyway.

"Mulder and I are in college together," she explained. "We're in our early twenties. I'm always in his dorm room and we're hanging out together and he always dies. The first few times I had the dream was in DC in the desert, and after I cut my wrist, when Shannon and Skinner were looking after me. Those times he turned into sand under my touch. Most of the time he just disappears and I wake up. Last night I rolled over in the dream after waking up and he was recently dead. That had never happened before. I'm really sorry I woke you all up. I don't usually react so audibly."

"Totally okay," John promised gently, watching Scully blush and nod. "Are you yourself when you were twenty-something in the dream?"

"Yeah, we're the same," she replied. "At least, I'm in med school and he's in psych." Her apple was abandoned as she rested her elbows on the table and propped up her forehead with her hands, staring straight down. "Completely besotted. God, I feel sick."

"Maybe a lie down," Skinner suggested. Scully shook her head, aware Mulder had raised his and was watching her with concern.

"No," she hissed. "It won't help. I've lived with nightmares most of my adult life, but they stopped when we bought that house in Virginia. I only ever had good dreams there."

"What about Mulder?" John asked, glancing at Mulder.

"It's true. Mine were much better there. Not always good, but better."

"Why was that?" Monica asked. "Because it was your home?"

"We felt safe there. It was probably the only time we've had a stable life together," he conceded. "But anyway, that's irrelevant now isn't it? Dana, how about a walk?" She shook her head, still staring at the table and pressing her palms into her forehead. "More of your apple?"

"I can't keep doing this Mulder. It hurts too much to lose you over and over. It hurts."

"I know Scully, soon," he promised, reaching out to stroke through her hair as she released a shaking breath. "Let's go back to bed and I'll read you some Moby Dick, all right? You'll just have to forgive me if my memory falters. I got a lot going on right now."

"Okay," she whispered, allowing Mulder to help her from her chair and lead her out of the kitchen without a word to their observers.

"You see what I mean?" Eddie asked once Mulder and Scully had gone. He had been standing quietly in a corner with Gibson, not needing to say anything. "They enclose. And if you think she's the only one that gets like that you're wrong."

"They're tired, we understand," Monica assured him. "If it was me I wouldn't have gotten back to sleep very well."

"They didn't, but that's not why they're tired," Gibson mumbled. "I told you that already. So did Mulder. Eddie I don't want to wait on this just for us. It's not fair to them. They're trying to do us a favour."

"What sort of favour?" John asked.

"Are you really that dense John?" Gibson taunted daringly. John raised his eyebrows, shocked by the attitude from the man less than half his age. "Do you want to handle their bodies then? Pull them apart from each other in death, clothe them, bury them or burn them? Because the whole reason they're still breathing is because they're trying to prevent putting you all through that. I certainly don't wanna do it, but I'm not going to stop them."

"They are really going to kill themselves?" Sarah asked softly. It was the first real confirmation anyone had given that lives were seriously at stake, and Gibson did not often kid around for the sake of trifle humour.

"They're consenting-"

"They're not if she's seriously depressed and he's under her influence," John mumbled.

"Neither of those statements is true," Gibson insisted. "They've got no fuel left in the tank, John. I'm gonna tell you something personal which I think would be okay, but every other night Mulder dreams a death sequence too. Hers. They are so emotionally vested in one another these dreams usually fall on the same nights as they pick up on one another's energy. And let's face it; it's not going to get better. They have each other, they've had a lot of time together, and they don't want to lose that to pursue their old age lived in a different world. Each of their greatest fears is losing the other. It always has been, ever since I first met them when I was a kid, before they were together. Mulder has considered shooting himself before. He's held the gun. Scully tried it too. What always stopped them was that they were alone and there was a possibility of the other surviving to live without them. It will never happen."

"And you've told them you're okay with this," John stated. It was clear Gibson supported them.

"Absolutely," he replied. "They're my friends. They're miserable. They never would have come here if Eddie hadn't found them first."

"What are you talking about?" Monica asked, frowning.

"They were all set to sail to Chesapeake Bay," Eddie explained. "I caught them just in time. I thought they would still be unconscious but oh no, they were up and recovered and had it all sorted. Suddenly they had made the decision. They were gonna sail back to Virginia, walk home over a couple of weeks or however long it would take, and kill themselves."

"What?" Sarah exclaimed. "For real?"

"They've always been able to, like you know. Scully's been hiding the means since the start. I convinced them to come here."

"Why?" John asked.

"They thought I had left them, abandoned them on the island. I suppose I wanted to reassure them that I had not done that, that I had a plan but had needed some time, and I think I also wanted them to come because they are my friends, and I like them very much. We don't have this concept of suicide where I come from. Nobody kills themselves. I knew they were both struggling for some time but I don't think I fully appreciated the nature of what was happening inside them. Suicide as I learned it was a concept of people who hated their life or who were disturbed or terminally ill. It's not something two otherwise healthy people do...unless they just know it's time. I should not have brought them here. It was selfish."

"We're glad you did," Monica whispered, reaching up to brush tears from her eyes which had not yet fallen. "I...I wanted to see them. I don't want them to... Don't they know how hurt we'll be? We love them."

"They know that," Gibson hissed. "And they're sorry. But you should let them go."

"But how?" Skinner asked. "Where? When?"

"I'm going to go with them and take care of their wishes," Eddie answered. "I haven't discussed it with them yet so that's all I'm prepared to explain."

"Will we get a warning?" Monica asked, tears trickling onto her cheeks.

"That depends on them. If and when they do go, will you all be okay? Will you cope?"

"Well...eventually," Skinner mumbled. "They'll be together and uh, you're right, that is important to them. As their boss once I...knew that. And I know how close they've come to death before. Often. And I'm sorry they can't see more time together as a gift not a curse."

"It's a miracle they had this time together," Gibson reminded them. "When I saw Mulder at the bus station I thought that was it, Scully was going to die and they would never see each other again. It was heartbreaking. They have a superstition that bad things happen to them when they're apart, and they don't want to risk it anymore. They want to be at peace."

xxx 

"Do you think they're talking about us?" Scully asked as she lay on top of the covers in bed on her side. One of her hands rested on Mulder's stomach as he lay relaxed on his back, his fingers laced behind his head. He nodded, breathing deeply and enjoying her steady touch.

"There's not a doubt in my mind," he answered. "We are seriously scaring our friends. Last night John told me they wanted a proper goodbye but I don't think I want that. I wouldn't know what to say."

"Hopefully Gibson and Eddie are out there saying it for us," Scully mumbled. "They can probably articulate it so much better than us, being a step removed but still being completely tuned in."

"Mm," Mulder hummed. "Do you still feel sick?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "Light-headed."

"You were sweating pretty hard last night," he pointed out. "You might still be dehydrated." Scully nodded in agreement.

"Diagnosing for the doctor now, are ya?" she asked. He grinned at her and raised his eyebrows suggestively as she laughed, but the humour died quickly as she continued, her voice dropping to a thoughtful whisper. "You know," she continued. "I used to be so afraid when I was younger of losing myself to you. Of becoming so attached to you and risking you running off on another long-shot or of losing you to an act of violence and not being able to recover the parts of me I thought I could give you. I didn't want to be that vulnerable."

"We crossed that line so gradually. We were careful." Scully nodded. She knew Mulder had been burned badly by ex-girlfriends and ex-colleagues before she met him, and she had even met some of those women over their years together, and he had been just as scared. Yet he had also been just as helpless as she had to stop the natural progression of their chemistry, their relationship. She sighed and laid her head on her pillow beside him, stretching her arm over his stomach in a one-armed hug.

"All those things I was afraid of are true, Mulder," she declared. "I have never been more vulnerable in my life than when I am with you, and without you. My entire life has revolved around you almost since our very first case. It always scared me why that was, and why I let it stay that way."

"Any regrets?" Mulder asked.

"Yeah," she admitted with a sad smile as he glanced at her.

"Me too," he mumbled, stretching over to awkwardly kiss her while still lying on his back. With her pressed so close to his side she misjudged him and lifted her head, and she giggled when he kissed her chin instead. "Are you still scared of why?" he asked once his head was back on his own pillow.

"I just accept it now. I learned to a long time ago. I'm here because I need to be, and I want to be, and I can never stay mad at you, and because I love you."

"I trust you," Mulder whispered. "Early this morning when you were in my lap I felt sick, and talking about this makes my legs weak, but I don't want it any other way. We haven't been able to make so many choices we had a right to make in our lives. I want to make this one."

Scully nodded and hugged him tightly. He rubbed her forearm as it lay across his stomach.

"I know it's mid-morning but I'm going to try to sleep for a little while," she stated. "Stay?"

"Yeah I'm tired," he agreed, shutting his eyes and relaxing as he felt Scully almost instantly drop off into a deep sleep. Hopefully dreamless, he prayed briefly, dreamless for them both.

xxx 

"Hey guys," Gibson greeted as he sat on the grass beside Skinner and Shannon. He knew he wasn't interrupting anything personal. "What do you think of what's been put back so far?"

"So they have a catalogue of what they took," Skinner reasoned. "And they're restoring it with stuff from Antarctica."

"Pretty much. Some things will have to be renewed from scratch, and it will take a while to produce enough grass and trees. That's why the other people can't come yet. Those things should be there first, because they're the things that will support life here. They had farms on Antarctica that can be transplanted in if they're the right things that grow here, and purifying water isn't a problem either. It's pretty awesome I think."

"Definitely never pictured this," Shannon agreed. "This is where I was sitting with Ted when the supersoldier treatment was released and it was a desert."

"Can you really appreciate that it's grass?" Gibson asked. "If you cut yourself would you bleed?"

"Probably as long as you would," she confirmed. "I'm not going to try though. I don't need to anymore. I just want to be myself."

"That's good, because nobody's gonna know you're a supersoldier, just like nobody's gonna know Eddie and Ted when he gets here, and the others, are aliens."

"How many others?" Skinner asked.

"Not many. Just a few of his research guys, all volunteers, all want to be here. Eddie thinks it will be pretty safe away from those who are trying to cure the plague."

"Pretty safe," Skinner echoed dryly.

"After like two years since this started I think you're doing well 'pretty safe'," Gibson teased.

"Are the aliens going to die out?" Shannon asked. "Without this cure?"

"They might find it somewhere else, but it's killed all their 'women' so yeah. Of course they live a lot longer than us; the bodies we see them in are just an illusion, so they'll probably all outlive us anyway."

"Think the other humans here might catch on then?"

"Personally I think everyone should be told the situation and made aware of the assistance being offered out of goodwill. Obviously the technology that will be brought here won't be of this world and I don't know what sort of survivors they've taken from the colonies. I don't know who they would have been able to get to before the stripping began. South America would have been one of the first continents targeted because of its rich resources; the other southern continents are more arid. We could be living with survivors from Africa or Australia."

"That'd be cool," Shannon chuckled. "The kids will end up with a crazy mixed accent."

"Well here's the deal," Gibson continued. "Eddie wanted me to talk to you two about that. When everyone else arrives maybe in a few weeks or a couple of months, we're all going to be here already. Eddie wants like a temporary council meeting or something, and he basically wants the two of you to take on a leadership role in explaining to everyone the situation, what's going to be happening, and to be available to answer questions and help people, and then once there's some sort of routine, we could re-evaluate leadership. I'm pretty certain nobody will have a problem with a democratic voting system, and they'd all be screened at the processing centre for qualities that would cause unwelcome disturbances. My feeling is there will be a mixture of young families and those men from Antarctica who were rescued by Eddie. He said they had been trapped in the conservation tower until he returned, which is pretty good in itself because people in the other towers had died."

"It will be fine, Gibson," Skinner promised. "We've done this before. John and Monica will be busy with a new baby and we understand yours and Eddie's reluctance to be in front. We'll do whatever necessary to make this work. After all, what's the alternative?"

"Good point," Gibson laughed. He stood and said goodbye, leaving them alone once more.

"He's a nice kid," Shannon commented softly, ignoring the fact Gibson could still hear her.

"Yeah," Skinner sighed. "It's tough with Mulder and Scully but he takes it all in stride."

"How do you feel about it?" Shannon asked.

"It's hard to see them like that," he mumbled. "But at the same time I get where they're coming from. You and I are different and will never have that because you'll far outlive me, but those two...in the FBI there was never any separating them. People tried. Sticking them in other divisions, on bum's rush assignments, and they always went back to each other and kept working on their little projects. They were recklessly single-minded. They still are. Dana was always fiercely protective of Mulder. I'll miss them but I'm...glad we played a part in giving them something they needed to be able to get to where they are."

"Saving Dana, you mean," Shannon whispered. Skinner nodded. "So that they're together."

"That's all that's ever mattered to them for a long time now," Skinner sighed. "That being said, I'm so grateful I'm here, with you, and that we have this opportunity to be together."

"Me too," Shannon agreed with a grin, wrapping her arm around his back and rubbing it affectionately. "I think I could really feel myself here."

"So Mulder and Scully aren't the only ones getting their wish," Skinner mumbled.

"No," Shannon sighed with a shake of her head. "Everyone here deserves to be happy though, and they still have the freedom here to make their own decisions. And if we really are going to be leaders, it will be our job to make sure people believe those things. Are you up for it?"

"With you? Yeah. Leading by example in this case is not so hard." She laughed.

"Good because this place is amazing, and I think we should go bird watching this afternoon."

"Bird watching," Skinner repeated, smirking. Shannon nodded happily. "Odd little hobby for an ex-army supersoldier, don't you think?"

"I never said the supersoldier didn't have odd hobbies," she teased with a giggle. "There are some amazing species here so far according to Eddie. It'll be fun."

"I don't doubt that," Skinner assured her with a wide grin. "Let's make a day of it then."

"Let's make a lifetime of it," she corrected with a serious smile, reaching for his hand.

xxx 

Monica knew something was different as soon as she woke up the following morning. There was a chill in the air that hadn't been there the previous day, or perhaps she was imagining the chill and it was the look on Gibson's face when she entered the kitchen. She had slept in and taken a shower so everyone was there, except for three people. She looked around the room as her heart sunk. Gibson pre-empted her question with a response she already knew.

"They're gone," he mumbled. "Just like that. They left us some things. Scully's Bible and a note but it was rushed. Eddie woke them up in the middle of the night and took them while you were all asleep. I'm sorry. They didn't want me to wake anyone up."

"Did you say goodbye?" Monica asked, tears stinging her eyes as she fought to hold them in. Gibson bit his lower lip and blushed with guilt as he nodded. "What's going to happen?"

"Eddie's taking them home," he answered. "Food and water permitting the timing is up to them. He won't stay with them, but he'll stay around and they'll work out a signal so that he'll know...and they want him to burn the house to the ground. Then he'll come back. I think he'll be upset. He really likes them. It's not his fault. They would have done this anyway."

"What if they change their mind?" Sarah asked.

"They won't," Gibson replied seriously.

"And so we're just supposed to be okay?" Monica asked. "Just have a cry and move on?"

"Mulder and Scully have faith that we can," he stated. "We'll have time alone here. The others won't come until maybe after you have the baby. You don't have to be okay Mon, but they made their decision, and we've made ours, and we're going to stick together still, right?"

"Always," she whispered, nodding and glancing at her son. He looked happy scribbling on a piece of paper with a pencil. Monica was so grateful they had survived and that they would go on and live. She would be able to raise her family, and they would be a small group of people but they could make it work. They had to. They had help, and they were no longer in an unfamiliar jungle with wrecked shelters and no medicines. She knew they would be okay.

The world was suddenly as small as a string of Pacific Islands, but it was their world, her earth. It was fresh and real and living, and they would embrace it. She had no choice, but it was more than, two years or even two months previously, she could have even hoped for.


	14. Chapter 14

(The totally awful) Epilogue (I wish I hadn't written but can't 'not' post at the same time)

 _Rural Virginia_

Scully knew she definitely was not dreaming when Mulder's long fingers wrapped around her waist and pushed her shirt up to touch her bare skin. She hummed and wasted no time in opening her eyes. She knew that was an awake touch and she confirmed as much when she looked up to see him half leaning over her, his brown eyes dark and half-lidded with sleep. His smile was content and she returned it tiredly.

"Does your head hurt?" he asked. She shook hers slowly, feeling the pillow underneath her. "We're here," he announced. "We made it." Scully looked to her side and saw a familiar, wooden bedside table. On it was propped their photo of them together in New York, taken just a few months after they had fled their old lives. It seemed like decades ago, but it had only perhaps been five years. Scully loved that photo, which was why she had carried it with her everywhere, because she had gotten Mulder back then, and they had been allowed to fall in love then, and they had been happy.

"Wow," she whispered. She continued to look around the room and realised they were indeed in their upstairs bedroom of their home. Mulder's photo of himself and Samantha as children was on his bedside table, their packs were on the floor propped up in the corner of the room against the wall, and they were under the blankets of the one bed they had spent more time in with each other than any other bed. It was truly theirs. They were home.

"I can't believe we're here," Mulder continued, leaning down to kiss her cheek softly in a morning greeting, though the light filtering in through the window seemed more like the afternoon.

"Eddie here?" she asked.

"I don't think so. He arranged everything with us before he knocked us out. Do you remember what he said?"

"Um...vaguely," she sighed. "I just woke up, give me a minute."

"S'okay," he promised kindly, propping himself up on his elbow on his pillow to watch her more comfortably. "He said he would give us some time. He'll know if we're gone because he won't be able to hear us-"

"Keep forgetting he can," she mumbled softly as Mulder continued.

"And he'll make sure this whole home comes with us." Scully shut her eyes and nodded.

"How are you feeling?"

"Still a little drugged I think. I want to walk around. Outside, is it sandy?"

"I haven't checked yet," Mulder admitted. "I only just woke up too." He pushed down the covers and Scully realised they were in the same clothes they had left in; their pyjamas which consisted of loose t-shirts and shorts. She got out of bed gingerly as Mulder did the same, both testing their balance after the effects of another dose of Eddie's knockout drug. "Really glad we won't have to go through this again," Mulder mentioned as Scully rounded the bed and reached for his arm for balance. They stumbled together to the window and Mulder reached out to open it as Scully gasped.

"It's beautiful," she whispered, tears stinging her eyes. It was her window again. Outside tall, dry grass swayed in a warm breeze still reminiscent of the desert but passable as summery, the sky was blue with scattered, puffy cumulus clouds, and there was not a grain of sand in sight. "How far do you think this stretches?"

"Probably only as far as we can see, just for us," Mulder reasoned. "Eddie would have been focussed on Hawaii and on clearing the remaining cities here to turn it into his nature reserve. But this is really cool."

"I was standing right here when it happened," Scully told him. Mulder shivered, picturing her against the window, wondering why he had not yet come home, perhaps blaming herself or cursing him or both. All that was long behind them, but it was significant to what had happened since, and they had lived with the painful consequences for many months before finding one another again.

"Do you think it's hot because it's summer or because a week ago it was a desert?"

"Both," she answered. "I think it is summer. It's been around two years according to our friends and Nicky and Monica. They're good little time-keepers."

"They were a bit more than just that," Mulder chuckled. Scully nodded, leaning her head against his bicep as he let a hand rest on her hips. "Think they'll forgive us?"

"Yes," she whispered. "Being there is right for them. This is right for us. Gibson and Eddie know that, and I think the others do too. Skinner has never seemed surprised by any of it, and I think even Shannon gets it. I don't know what will happen to her, whether she could ever die. That's a fate I could never want for myself."

"Who knows," Mulder mused. "An extended period of time with Skinner and she might end up mortal enough to reach an end. After that much time with him she might need to." Scully laughed.

"So what would you like to do this afternoon, Mulder?" she asked.

"Let's check the kitchen to see what's there, and then we can sit in the backyard and watch the stars come out. I don't think we should do it tonight." Scully shook her head. She did not want to act so quickly either.

In the downstairs kitchen they found several bottles of water and some food which Eddie had obviously decided to bring with him in case they had left very little in the house, which they had. They had never intended to return to Virginia once they had left and so had taken almost everything with them in the large, wooden crate they called 'the raft'. Scully smiled softly at the memory of Skinner trying to pull it and getting nowhere, and Shannon then towing it with ease. She was glad they were together and were happy. Skinner had always deserved that, and there had been times when Scully had felt sorry for him. It was good he had found someone he was compatible with, who shared some of his interests and parts of his past. They would be great leaders.

"Tea?" Mulder asked as he surveyed the water and the gas stove. The kettle was still there and she thought they would still have plenty of gas. She nodded and perched on one of the stools, peering out of the kitchen window to the backyard. A line of thick trees were in the distance, with more grass between the forest and the house.

"It's just like I remember," she whispered.

"It is," Mulder agreed. "It's beautiful."

"Just what I wanted," she added as her voice cracked. She reached up to swipe at the tears in her eyes as Mulder poured water into the kettle with a sad smile on his face. "Mulder can we make love tonight?" she asked. He glanced at her with a curious smirk. "We haven't in a while," she reasoned. It was true. Not since the day after her mini-breakdown in Antarctica, in the genetic storeroom of Tower One and then in their quarters. He grinned as those memories melded into one and he nodded without any words, watching her instantly relax. He could not remember the last time she had actually asked for his permission. Usually, if anyone asked, it was him.

"It's a nice night," he began casually. "Stars will be out. Should I bring a blanket onto the grass out back?" he suggested. Scully's blue eyes lit up with surprise and her tongue ducked out to wet her lips as she nodded. "Excellent."

xxx 

"Wish we had music," Mulder whispered into Scully's ear the following afternoon. They had discovered her green dress in the cupboard but she had felt silly wearing it while he had been in nothing more formal than jeans and they were in their own home, so they had stuck to their pyjamas. They would not be in them for much longer anyway.

"We can have music," she replied with a soft chuckle as her head rested against his chest. They were swaying softly in the silence around them. "As long as you don't mind my singing," she explained. "What do you feel like?"

"Ooh...Do you know the theme from Shaft?" he teased. She giggled and shook her head. "Pity."

"And I was walking in Memphis," she sung softly, lifting her head to look up and catch his eyes. She knew he would remember it was the first song they had ever danced to, and almost the last considering how infrequently they had bothered.

"Saw the ghost of Elvis," he replied, slightly off tune but no worse than her. He reached for her hands and laced their fingers together as she joined in with the verse. If she could hear the song she probably would know the words straight through, but without the music and in the emotionally charged situation after an intimate twenty-four hours together she had almost no hope, and they skipped between parts of verses and the chorus as they danced. Scully laughed at the few twirls Mulder threw in. He was a good dancer and his eyes glittered with happiness as they fooled around clumsily with lyrics and movements.

"Got any more good ideas?" he asked once the song had run its course at least three times over. He pulled her close to his chest and wrapped his arms around her. "Something slow," he whispered in her ear.

"I can only think of one right now," she conceded. "But it's a country song, Mulder. I'm not sure you can handle it."

"There's a first for everything," he teased.

"I always thought if things were different it could be our wedding song," she admitted. "But don't laugh at me when I try and sing it okay? If I get emotional I'll mess it up."

"It's okay," he whispered into the top of her head, stroking her long hair and shuffling her back and forth on the wooden floors of their bedroom. "This is our wedding right now, you know?"

"And we're SO dressed for it," she teased. He laughed.

"Shh, sing woman," he ordered playfully, listening to her clear her throat.

"You know it," she whispered before she began. "I wrote it in my diary while we were apart."

Mulder nodded, glancing at the diary sitting on her bedside table. They had spent the morning going through the handwritten book, talking softly to one another about everything in it, about their youth and their lives and work, sharing comments reinforcing beliefs or offering support. On top of the closed diary were the pills and two nearly empty bottles of water. They would only need a sip. They were really doing it, and Mulder was tingling all over. Tears were in his eyes and on his cheeks as Scully sang to him, not because he was afraid he was going to lose her, but because they were in the midst of closing their lives. He did not think they would ever return, but hopefully that would mean they would never again be apart.

 _Chances are you'll find me somewhere on your road tonight_

 _Seems I always end up driving by_

 _Ever since I've known you it just seems you're on my way_

 _All the rules of logic don't apply_

 _I long to see you in the night_

 _Be with you 'til morning light_

Mulder exhaled a sharp, aroused breath as Scully stepped away from him and pulled her shirt up over her head, dropping it to the bedroom floor behind her. Her long, thick orange hair was out and her blue eyes stared up at him with an emotional determination he knew so well. Bravely she pushed her shorts and underwear down and stepped out of them, letting him watch her undress for the last time.

He knew this was the final step before they ended their lives. He knew he should be sad or scared but he wasn't. He wanted her, and he could see in her eyes she wanted him. They had already made love a handful of times in the past day, each time trying to get closer, deeper, to become one physically on a level above any other level they had ever reached. Mulder knew they had always reached the highest level of emotional and physical intimacy, but they would try again anyway because every time they did their souls merged for longer and they felt complete and sated and not at all sad. They wanted their souls to be as close as possible when they were freed, so entwined that they would never be apart. Mulder couldn't wait.

He pulled his own shirt over his head as he let Scully reach for his shorts. One last time.

 _I remember clearly how you looked the night we met_

 _I recall your laughter and your smile_

 _I remember how you made me feel so at ease_

 _I remember all your grace, your style_

 _And now you're all I long to see_

 _You've come to mean so much to me_

Scully reached for the pills blindly with one arm as she kept Mulder inside her and above her, tilting her head so that he could better kiss her neck. She was not sure how long they had been in bed together since dancing, but she could still hear the words of her song in her head, and it was dark outside. The breeze through the open window was warm and gentle, though it felt cool against their sweaty bodies. She breathed deeply as he lavished attention on her pulse point and caressed her body. Her legs which were still wrapped around him rubbed along his hips and his own legs. Her body was tender and spent and she knew by the way Mulder was relaxed against her he was the same. She did not mind his weight. She wanted to remember the feeling forever. Clasping the pills she wrapped both her hands around his back and rolled them onto their sides, finding his lips with hers and kissing him deeply.

 _And I'll be dreaming of the future_

 _And hoping you'll be by my side_

 _And in the morning I'll be longing_

 _For the night_

"I love you," she whispered, pressing the small packet into one of his hands. His fingers clenched around the foil and her palm and he kissed her again. "This isn't goodbye," she promised as their swollen lips parted and they breathed heavily, staring into each other's tear-filled, exhausted eyes. Mulder licked his lips and nodded. He knew. She was confident there were no doubts or regrets left for either of them. "I trust you," she added, stroking his cheek to soothe them both. He looked down and broke the seal on the pills that they could have used at any point in their lives. He was glad they had waited. The time was right for them.

"I trust you too," he whispered as he handed her two of the pills and kept two for himself, throwing the packet somewhere behind him. "And I adore you Dana, and I will love you forever." Scully smiled. She turned briefly to collect the bottles of water.

 _Chances are I'll see you somewhere in my dreams tonight_

 _You'll be smiling like the night we met_

 _Chances are I'll hold you and I'll offer all I have_

 _You're the only one I can't forget_

 _Baby you're the best I've ever met_

Mulder shut his eyes and pressed his forehead to Scully's after sharing a soft, lingering kiss. Their tears and sweat mixed as they tangled their legs and rested their hands over one another's hearts. Scully cried softly as their foreheads and noses nuzzled but Mulder's tears were silent. He cradled her around her back and neck, holding the crown of her head in his palm to keep them together as they tried to breathe in time, so their last breath would be just one. Tiredness overcame them quickly, and it took all his strength to whisper that he loved her one last time. Her mumbled reply caused him to smile as his fingers relaxed in her hair.

"Sleep with me Fox."


End file.
